Top Ten Tallest Vanity Heights Around The Globe
In the captivating world of skyscrapers, the race to reach the heavens has given rise to a unique architectural phenomenon: vanity height. Our comprehensive article, “The Top Ten Tallest Vanity Heights Around the Globe,” delves into this fascinating aspect of modern construction, where buildings extend far beyond their functional height. Vanity height, the distance between a skyscraper’s highest occupiable floor and its architectural top, has become a symbol of prestige and innovation in urban design. Our article offers an intriguing journey through the top ten skyscrapers that boast the most impressive vanity heights, showcasing architectural marvels from cities like Dubai, Shanghai, and New York.
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1:Rose Tower, Dubai, UAE: 96m (315ft) of Vanity
With the rapid expanding of population growth along with the likewise rapid development and expansion of cities, the only way to go is up. World wide, man has begun to construct incredible feats of engineering and architecture in order to cope with the city space deprivation but question is – how much of these buildings are actually useable? Recently, there has been a revelation leaned towards the space-wasting of some of the tallest and most grand buildings built on earth. Vanity Height is simple “the distance between a skyscraper’s highest occupiable floor and its architectural top.”. The term was coined by the worlds leading authority on skyscrapers, The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH for short). A research was performed in order to reveal the empty, unoccupied, unnecessary “vanity” space atop the world’s tallest towers, leading to surprising results like how almost all were built after the turn of the century. We’ve collected the top 10 most wasteful vanity heights around the globe!The original design of the structure set its height to be around 1,247 ft tall but due construction difficulties, it was lowered to a mere 315 ft of vanity – roughly around 25% of the originally planned height.
2: Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel – Dubai, UAE
Boasting 56-floors and holding 400 rooms, the Jumeirah Emirates Towers is another tower from Dubai that is beautifully painful given the fact that 31% of the building’s upper portion is totally unuseable. Suddenly, your penthouse unit doesn’t exactly sound too penthouse-y anymore.
3: Bank of America Tower – New York, USA
Despite being designed by COOKFOX Architects to be one of the worlds most environmentally efficient and friendly buildings on earth, the 1,200ft tall mega-structure boast an incredible 36% of total non-occupiable height. Thats 1 tad bit more than one-third of the entire building.
4: Zifeng Tower – Nanjing, China
Being aptly named on their website as “GREEDLAND PLAZA/ZIFENG TOWER”, the vanity in the building is no surprise. Despite providing its visitors with glorious views of the city, the 1,480ft tall tower is the first to hit our 30% mark with the upper portion of the tower being non-occupiable and entirely put to waste.
5:The Pinnacle – Guangzhou, China
The Pinnacle is one of the three supertall skyscrapers in the city although none of its contemporaries makes CTBUH’s list. With 27% of non-occupiable vanity height.
6: Minsheng Bank Building – Wuhan, China
The Minsheng Bank Building stands at 1,086ft and is the tallest building in Wuhan although the remaining 308.4ft starting at the buildings crown is empty, resulting in 28% of the building being useless. It even has 3 floors of space below the building. All we can ever ask is… why?
7: Burj Khalifa – Dubai, UAE
In current definitions, there are “super-tall” buildings at around 980ft in height and the recently added “mega-tall” classification for buildings over 1,970ft high. And just like we have our Michael Jordan’s and Michael Jacksons, Dubai’s 2,719ft tall Burj Khalifa is a superstar amongst others, belonging in a class of its own. Sadly, a big chunk of 29% of the structure is non-occupiable. Thats almost one-third of its space being wasted. Sad.
8: The New York Times Building – New York, USA
Having been built on one of the most prime spots in on of the most prime cities in the world, you would be a dumbo not to expect vanity from this structure. Officially measuring in at 1,046.5ft in height, housing 52 floors as well as having the world famous company occupy floors 2 through 27, the occupiable space in this building is only at an incredibly low 68% leaving the remaining 32% unuseable for any purpose whatsoever.
9: Emirates Tower One – Dubai, UAE
Standing 1,164.7ft tall, this building is a mere 4 meters taller than its younger brother, Burj al Arab although it takes vanity height to a whole new level. The 54-story establishment with a triangular floorplan boasts 32% of space all dedicated to… Nothing.
10: Burj al Arab – Dubai, UAE
The magnificent beauty of this building is a perfect representation of modern structures as well as man’s long and epic journey into the depths of design and architectural. The 1,053ft tall Burj al Arab or Tower of the Arabs is one of the tallest and most beautiful structures in the world, boasting one of the most awe-inspiring penthouse views around the globe. And as jaw-dropping as its physical appearance, the building holds 39% of its total height to pure… Nothingness. Yes, 11% short of making half of the entire magnificent structure un-occupiable. But then again, when did beauty ever come without a price?
