The Saudi city of Jeddah is home to many things, including Al-Ittihad, the soccer team currently sitting atop the national league’s standings. But a flagship team of the Saudi Pro League isn’t the only ambitious and controversial project afoot in Jeddah. The city is also home to the Jeddah Tower, a structure expected to be the tallest building in the world — if construction on it ever finishes.
Work on the Jeddah Tower has involved stops and starts; a 2018 Reuters article on the project quoted Mounib Hammoud, chief executive of Jeddah Economic Co, expressing hope that the tower would be completed in 2020. That, unfortunately, did not come to pass.
But, per a report from MEED, work has resumed on the tower. One source told the journal that, as of this month, “it is back in full motion.” The Jeddah Economic Company has invited a number of international developers to bid on completing the project; those bids are due by the end of this year.
As Dezeen reports, the Jeddah Tower is set to reach 1,000 meters into the sky upon completion. That’s well over 100 meters taller than the Burj Khalifah, which currently holds the record for the planet’s tallest building.
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Life at 432 Park Ave, one of Manhattan’s tallest and wealthiest addresses, is not what it seemsOne of the founders of the architecture firm responsible for the design of the Jeddah Tower, Adrian Smith + Gill Gordon Architecture, also has ties to the Burj Khalifah. As Dezeen’s Ben Dreith points out, Smith designed the current record holder when he was working at Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
Currently, the incomplete tower stands 63 stories tall. For architecture enthusiasts, this is one to keep an eye on.
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