Tall Building

Ancient tall structures such as the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Mayan temples in Tikal, Guatemala and the Kutab Minar in India are just a few examples testifying to the human aspiration to build increasingly tall structures.

These buildings are primarily solid structures serving as monuments rather than space enclosures. By contrast, temporary tall structures are human habitats, conceived in response to rapid urbanisation and population growth although the sheer audacity in their vertical scale may often give them the dubious title of monuments.

In the design of early monuments, consideration of spatial interaction between structural subsystems was relatively unimportant, because their massiveness provided for strength and stability.

Tall buildings in the modern sense began to appear over a century ago, however, it was only after the second World War that rapid urbanisation and population growth created the need for the construction of tall buildings.

The dominant impact of tall buildings on urban landscapes has tended to invite controversy, particularly in cities with older historic values. The skyscrapper silhoutte has transformed and shaped the skylines of many cities, thereby creating the most characteristic and symbolic testaments to the cities wealth and their inhabitants collective ambitions.