A century ago, great architecture simply meant taming the ethers with colossal buildings that touched the gods.
This is how it was built Empire State Building.
Today, as the skies continue to be the limit of human ambition, architecture has changed goals, wholeheartedly embracing ecology and what it imposes in terms of sustainable design.
Not that of course the visual magic is missing, everything else! Impressive buildings are being built feverishly as we speak, some even for a number of years, and they are ready to open their majestic gates this year.
And all this at a time when an undeclared war is raging on the sidelines, the one for the tallest building in the world.
There are many suitors who aspire to steal his highly honorary title this year Burj Khalifa in Dubai and it remains to be seen if they will overtake him within the year.
Because a number of skyscrapers in China and the Middle East, but also in Kazakhstan, Poland and Malaysia, are rising rapidly as these lines are being written.
A huge complex of mixed use 560.000 sq.m. MAD is building in the bustling capital of Yangzhou Province, which will include apartments, offices, hotels and shops. As Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center is known and will operate throughout the year.
As its name suggests and is indicated by the white outlines of the perimeter towers, it is set up like a mountain range, theoretically "mountains" that enclose a whole community of smaller buildings and green spaces. An entire state built by his architectural office Beijing, MAD, as a residential and commercial center.
Nature dominates the complex, and even the shape of the skyscrapers refers to the erosion that air and water bring to the ridge of the mountains. The construction has entered the final phase of completion and will be delivered within the year…
An imposing glass building will operate throughout the year as headquarters of the French publishing house Le Monde Group in Paris. Collaboration of the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta with the SRA studio, the duo won the "Le Monde" competition for its new headquarters.
The exterior will be covered by what the architects call a "pixelated glass panel", a glass of mixed permeability and transparency, ie that from a distance looks uniform, but as you approach you see its different degrees of transparency.
The design of the building focuses on the relationship of the newspaper with its audience, but also on the evolution of the press itself in recent years.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the famous architectural firm Foster + Partners is ready to complete the first Manhattan skyscraper that will occupy an entire square of Park Avenue in 50 years. A 41-storey skyscraper which "sets new standards in the design of workplaces", as it leaves the interior without columns.
Leading British architect Norman Foster makes it from steel and concrete and will climb to a height of 221 meters, being another amazing tree in its concrete jungle New York. According to Foster, his tower respects the historical context of the area, but reflects its own modern times.
The first ever residential project undertaken by the London Heatherwick Studio in Asia is slowly coming to a complete completion. A 20-storey concrete tower with an equal number of luxurious apartments of 282 sq.m. and hanging gardens so as not to hide the luxury that lurks inside.
The 104,5-meter building was designed to "marry nature with living in the city", combining architecture and greenery. "Like most cities in the world, its ridge Singapore it is full of angular steel and glass towers ", said Thomas Heatherwick characteristically and set out to change that…
Turning from a triangular base to a rectangular vertex, the Vancouver House seems to defy the laws of engineering by looking at it from afar. But it is the kind of eccentric design that has made Bjarke Ingels, the over-ambitious Danish architect who gave us the most subversive factory in the world.
But it was also a decisive response to the many building regulations and restrictions in the city center that had to be somewhat overcome. The architect wants us to see his tower as a "giant curtain", the moment we pull it to reveal the world in Vancouver and Vancouver to the world.
Despite the fact that she is no longer alive, the famous Zaha Hadid continues to leave her mark on the world with her extremely characteristic style. Now it is her legacy, the creative studio Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), that promotes her vision and look at architecture.
But Opus was her own idea, which she proposed in 2007 and construction actually started in 2012. And in 2020 she is expected to do inauguration. Although it looks like a single, the glass building consists of two distinct towers that form an asymmetrical hole in the center.
The Opus of 84.000 sq.m. will host a boutique hotel of Melia Hotels International, as well as offices and 12 restaurants. And despite the fact that he is only one kilometer away from the 828-meter Burj Khalifa, he directly threatens to steal all his eyes.
It is again the British architect Thomas Heatherwick, a man who never lacks ideas and ambition, who is responsible for this unique design that is quickly set up in Shanghai. An "urban mountain covered with trees", as he typically says it.
In a huge plot in front of the river, huge columns emerge from the construction to accommodate trees, 1.000 in number, as the name suggests. More than an architectural construction, it is what he calls "a piece of topography".
In the shape of two mountain peaks, will house a small town within the city, with shops, offices, restaurants and galleries. We expect it in 2020 to function as a real jewel of Shanghai. As for the "1.000 Trees", they will actually host 25.000 plants from 46 species…
At an estimated cost of $ 1,2 billion, the world's tallest building is ready to open this year and at 1.000 meters high steals the glory from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The Jeddah Tower is a spectacular construction of 252 floors, one long-suffering work of Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill which is eventually completed despite the adventures.
The architects introduced it in 2011 and in 2013 they started building it, through the construction JEC (Jeddah Economic Company) and the Bin Laden Group, only the cost seemed unbearable in many phases. But also the technical problems insurmountable.
It will house in its vast interior a hotel of the Four Seasons chain, 325 apartments, offices on 7 floors, but also the tallest observatory in the world at its top. And it will be the great pride of its new financial center Jeddah, a huge commercial and residential project of 5,3 million square meters…
The great visionaries of the world of skyscrapers, Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill based in Chicago, also hit Manhattan, where building a skyscraper is a completely different experience from anywhere else in the world. You have to respect the architectural history, but also the huge challenges in this spectacular concrete forest.
The central park tower will be completed as everything shows in 2020 as the second tallest building in the US, but also in the entire western hemisphere, just behind the One World Trade Center. Its 472 meters of height leaves no room for doubt, making it the 15th tallest skyscraper on the planet. And the tallest residential tower in the world, alas.
The Central Park Tower will house 179 luxury homes, starting on the 32nd floor, changing the very ridge of the city.