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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Edward Keegan: Milwaukee is building contemporary timber towers. What about Chicago?
One of the more memorable displays of old-style Chicago politics and boosterism that I ever witnessed was at a Streeterville community meeting circa 2007 in which outgoing 42nd Ward Ald. Burt Natarus implored his constituents to support Santiago Calatrava's proposed Chicago Spire project. If Chicago didn't have a Calatrava, Natarus argued, we would fall behind Milwaukee — which had the Milwaukee Art Museum designed by the Spanish architect. In the years since, our neighbor to the north has become a hotbed for the development of timber towers — tall buildings that use relatively new mass timber technologies that can replace the steel and concrete traditionally used to support such structures. Since 2022, Milwaukee has been home to the tallest timber tower in the world — the 25-story Ascent MKE at 284 feet in height. That's no Sears Tower, but when you consider that most wood-framed buildings are one to four stories tall, it's quite an achievement. The residential tower was designed by the locally based Korb Architecture for a site just a few blocks from the lakefront at the corner of North Van Buren Street and East Kilbourn Avenue. Clad primarily in glass, Ascent is unnecessarily fussy in its articulation with a few too many nips and tucks in its plan. Recessed balconies are awkward accents on the east and west elevations. Its floor-to-ceiling glass is dark and foreboding and clashes with the lightness of the timber columns and ceilings that can be seen from the street. The building is a hybrid, with its timber tower built atop a concrete parking structure. The transition from concrete to wood structure is revealed, but it's done in a distinctly unartful manner — an unfortunate missed opportunity, given the building's remarkable structural narrative. Ascent is just the beginning for Milwaukee's contemporary wood construction. Ground was recently broken on the 361-foot-tall Neutral Edison along the east bank of the Milwaukee River in downtown. When completed in 2027, the 31-story building will stand above all timber towers in the United States but is expected to be the second tallest such structure in the world, following a building in Australia that should be completed sooner. The Neutral Edison will be the 11th tallest building in Milwaukee. But timber has the potential to shape the upper edges of the city's skyline. Its developer proposes to build a 55-story timber tower on the site next door that would be the city's — and Wisconsin's — tallest building. But the same-height building in Chicago wouldn't even make the top 50 here. Not surprisingly, when there's a tall building to be discussed, there's a Chicago connection. The architects for the Neutral Edison are Chicago-based Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture. Hartshorne Plunkard isn't new to the timber game, having designed the mixed-use INTRO Cleveland project that was the largest mass timber project in the United States when it was completed in 2022. Its design for the Neutral Edison will be a conventional rectangular apartment block with a large grid pattern inscribed across each of its facades. Setbacks between the parking at its base and the rest of the tower will reveal building amenities as well as the structure's typical wood decking. It's simple, straightforward and elegant in a way that we expect in Chicago. Abundant supplies of wood and its adaptability to most construction have made it a favorite throughout architectural history. But steel and concrete became predominant in larger buildings from the late 19th century onward when cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee came into their own. The more recent use of wood in large-scale construction has been fueled by an awareness of a contemporary building's carbon footprint. Buildings — both through construction and operation — have typically contributed almost 40% of the carbon that drives global warming. In recent years, architects, engineers and developers have sought to lower these numbers substantially. Steel and concrete are carbon-intensive, but wood does not require large quantities of carbon to manufacture. Also, trees absorb carbon during their life and continue to sequester the element during their lifetimes as building materials. Thus, wood offers a significant benefit to offset carbon throughout a building's life. For all the stunning achievements that Chicago architects and engineers have accomplished over the last century and a half, there's still a deeply conservative streak that runs through the city's building culture. Fire, through several key historical events, is at fault. The Great Chicago Fire (1871), the Iroquois Theater fire (1903) and the conflagration that leveled the original McCormick Place (1967) all have had impacts on Chicago, and the world's, approach to fire prevention and management. So, perhaps it's not surprising that we now lag many places in the development of new construction with mass timber. Chicago was early to the sustainability movement, which Mayor Richard M. Daley initially embraced and which each of his predecessors continued to varying degrees. And Chicago's architects and engineers have helped lead in the sector as well. It's not that we don't have larger wood structures throughout the city. Late 19th century loft buildings, from River North to Fulton Market to the Near West Side, are generally made of mass timber. And the most recent changes to the city's building code, adopted in 2020, are open to the larger structures such as those in Milwaukee. Burt Ald. Natarus was wrong. Chicago didn't need a building by Calatrava to secure its place in architectural history — although there's no reason we couldn't or wouldn't welcome a design by the talented architect. Nor do we need to best Milwaukee in any particular aspect. But it does seem like a missed opportunity that there's no timber tower currently under construction here. Given that many of the technologies that have made tall buildings possible were either invented or perfected here, why hasn't Chicago embraced this more sustainable way to build tall buildings yet? Full disclosure: A decade ago, I ran communications for the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Chicago office while it developed the Timber Tower Research Project, an early proof of concept for wood in high-rise construction. And for the last 2 1/2 years, I have been a content creator for Think Wood, a website funded by the Softwood Lumber Board. The opinions in my column are solely my own. Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan's biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Why I moved out of Temple Bar after 25 years: ‘I feared our home would become uninhabitable'
It was a chilly night in Dublin on July 1st, 1996, when soprano Virginia Kerr appeared on the crow's nest balcony of The Ark children's cultural centre in Meeting House Square to deliver a soulful rendition of Seán Ó Riada's arrangement of Mná na hÉireann. Her star turn was followed by a concert on the stage featuring Anuna, Shaun Davey and The Corrs to inaugurate Ireland's presidency of the European Union and celebrate the completion of this new public space in the heart of the city. The Temple Bar project was on a roll, with its sophisticated mix of renovated historic buildings and stylish contemporary interventions testifying to the Europeanisation of Dublin. The Ark, designed by Group 91's Michael Kelly and Shane O'Toole, was installed behind the retained facade of a 1728 Presbyterian meeting house on Eustace Street, with a stage that could play to the square by raising horizontal hinged, slatted doors invented by Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava . There was something surreal about sitting out in Meeting House Square on balmy summer nights to watch movies projected on to a screen rolled down over the facade of the new Gallery of Photography, with everyone getting a plastic cape in case of rain. It didn't feel like Dublin at all. Only a few years previously, the new square had been a surface car park, as was Temple Bar Square, while Curved Street – bisecting the urban block between Eustace Street and Temple Lane – was a pair of derelict sites. Group 91, the consortium of 13 talented younger architects who won a competition for the Temple Bar Architectural Framework Plan and then divvied up the plum cultural projects among themselves, were showered with awards for their work, and some of them went on to win accolades abroad. Architects, planners, urbanists and geographers flocked to Dublin, hailing what had been achieved in this 10-hectare chunk of the city's historic core as one of the finest urban renewal projects in Europe. READ MORE And we were in right the middle of it all. My partner Eamon Slater and I (with help from some friends) had queued for a week in February 1995 to make sure of getting what estate agents would call a 'duplex penthouse' on the upper floors of a renovated 1840s warehouse building at the corner of Temple Lane and Cecilia Street. I had been writing in The Irish Times about the vital need for people to live in the city centre, so the time had come for me to put my money where my mouth was. Temple Bar Properties, the State agency set up to oversee the renewal and development of the area, was selling apartments on a 'first come, first served' basis, so queueing became de rigueur – though the length of time we did it for set a new record. The sale of our previous home, a lovely end-of-terrace house on Casimir Road in Harold's Cross, and an EBS mortgage enabled us to pay £195,000 for this 124sq m apartment, and there were generous tax incentives that made it feasible. We were so full of optimism about the future of Dublin then. At last, things were going in the right direction. People were moving into town, populating the upper floors of buildings, whether renovated or newly built. And during that first summer in Temple Bar when the sun shone every day, it was a bit like Barcelona. Nearly everywhere in the city centre, there was something new to marvel at and celebrate. It seemed that pre-Celtic Tiger Dublin had truly become a European capital city. It was such a privilege to walk out of our building – The Granary – and find everything within easy reach. There was a newsagent's across the street, an internet cafe on our ground floor, plus all the shops on Grafton Street and Henry Street. And good restaurants like Fitzer's and Trastevere on Temple Bar Square, Nico's and Frères Jacques on Dame Street, the Clarence Hotel's Tea Room and Eden on Meeting House Square, where there used to be a wonderful food market every Saturday. Premier among the area's cultural offers was the Irish Film Institute (IFI), installed by O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects in the former Quaker meeting house on Eustace Street. It was so close that we could be sitting in its cinema seats within five minutes of leaving 'the flat', as we always called it. Whenever I gave walking tours of the area, I would always bring groups through it, noting the metaphorical roll of film in the middle of the corridor leading in from its entrance to the central roof-lit courtyard foyer. Our apartment had an east-west orientation, with loading bay doors opening out into Curved Street. After The Ark opened as Europe's first purpose-built children's cultural centre, we would see excited primary school kids making their way there, walking in pairs with a teacher at the front and another bringing up the rear. That was a charming image of the daytime Dr Jekyll ambience of Temple Bar, by contrast with the after-dark, drink-fuelled Mr Hyde persona that it acquired over time. Frank McDonald in his Temple Bar apartment, 2010. Photograph: Aidan Crawley Earmarked in the 1970s for development as a mega transportation centre, CIÉ had bought up lots of buildings in the area and made the mistake (from its viewpoint) of letting them on short-term leases at affordable rents to artists and galleries, funky clothes shops, bookstores, cafes, pizzerias, community resource centres, recording studios, performance spaces and other activities that generated a 'Left Bank' bohemian atmosphere, even in the midst of endemic urban decay. [ From the archive: Thirty years of Temple Bar: A cultural quarter or overblown drinking space? Opens in new window ] By 1987, Charles J Haughey could see its potential, famously pledging that he 'wouldn't let CIÉ near the place'. And so, in 1991, Temple Bar Properties – initially headed by Paddy Teahon, then assistant secretary general in the Taoiseach's department, and later by Laura Magahy – was set up with a mission to create a 'bustling cultural, residential and small business precinct that will attract visitors in significant numbers ... building on what has already taken place spontaneously in the area'. There was significant funding from Brussels for what was planned as 'Dublin's Cultural Quarter', but the money was coming from the EU's tourism programme – and the easiest way to increase footfall and 'put bums on seats' was to facilitate the development of pubs and restaurants. Within the first five years, almost an acre of drinking space was added to the area, turning it into 'the Temple of Bars' and drawing revellers from all over Europe on Ryanair flights to enjoy the 'craic' in Dublin. Night-time in Temple Bar, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill In April 1997, two years after moving in, I flagged in The Irish Times that Temple Bar was turning into Dublin's version of Sachsenhausen, the entertainment zone of Frankfurt in Germany, where nearly every building on its quaintly cobbled streets is either a bar, a restaurant, a nightclub or a tourist trinket shop: 'The main drag, along Temple Bar and East Essex Street, is thronged at weekends by drinkers on a seemingly endless pub crawl. The atmosphere can be unsavoury, even dangerous.' [ The future of Temple Bar: Dystopian wasteland or 'thriving cultural scene'? Opens in new window ] Gates had to be erected around Meeting House Square in 1997 to close it at night because of fears that it would be trashed. Given that one of the primary goals of the Temple Bar project was to create new public spaces, this in itself was an admission of failure – and an official acknowledgment that we have a real problem in Ireland with our 'public realm'. Over the years since, policing in the area has been light touch, with an increased Garda presence only after serious incidents happen. The easiest way to attract visitors to Temple Bar was to facilitate the development of pubs and restaurants. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Gardaí on patrol in Temple Bar. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill In 1998, the Dublin City Development Plan was amended to ensure that there would be a suitable mix of day and night-time activities so that pubs and other licensed premises would not dominate cultural, residential and retail uses in the area. But this was quietly dropped in 2005, probably because Temple Bar had become such a key element in the State's tourism offer that the need for balance was seen as an impediment to its 'success'. Increasingly, the residents were marginalised. At its peak in 2011, there were around 2,000 people living in the Temple Bar area – mainly in the west end, between Parliament Street and Fishamble Street. From 2015 onwards, the number was eroded as many apartments that had been occupied by long-term renters were turned into tourist short-lets via Airbnb, the Key Collection and other platforms. Day after day, we would see (and hear) tourists trundling wheelie bags through the cobbled streets to find flats they had booked that used to be people's homes. The number of residents in Temple Bar has fallen as many apartments that had been occupied by long-term renters were turned into tourist short-lets. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Night time in Temple Bar. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill At its peak in 2011, there were around 2,000 people living in the Temple Bar area. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Noise was a persistent problem. Not so much street noise, but heavily amplified music from pubs, venues and nightclubs. As chair of an informal group, Temple Bar Residents, I spent a lot of time making 'observations' on planning applications or enforcement complaints to Dublin City Council and appeals to An Bord Pleanála. And turning up in the District Court to object to the renewal of music and singing licences for abusive pubs blasting out noise with doors wide open and even external loudspeakers. Proposals to change the licensing laws so that late bars and nightclubs could stay open until 6am if they chose to do so – in response to the Give Us The Night lobbying campaign by DJs, publicans and other vested interests – filled us with dread and required a serious investment of time and effort in making submissions to the Night-time Economy Taskforce, the Department of Justice and others, stressing the need for an effective European-style noise control regime to protect city centre residents. [ 'A lot of local leaders lost patience with Dublin': Give Us The Night campaign renews the fight for a level playing field Opens in new window ] The final straw for us came in January 2022 when we heard loud dance music emanating from a premises next door that used to be occupied by Shan, an Indian restaurant, which had been turned into the DL Bar. When I went in to find out what was happening, there was a DJ with decks playing at 88dB according to my decibel meter, and a crowd bopping on the floor in front of a fully stocked bar. If this racket was to continue night after night, I feared that our home would become uninhabitable. Frank McDonald: 'We were so full of optimism about the future of Dublin.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill We managed to put a stop to it. But we were getting older and there was no lift in The Granary nor any space to install one, so the stairs would have defeated us in the longer term. So we put the flat up for sale in an off-market transaction and got a good price for it, which enabled us to buy a beautiful new apartment in deepest, leafiest Blackrock with views south towards Three Rock Mountain. Monty Python's catchphrase sprang to mind: 'And now for something completely different.' Having made the move in November 2022, we've got used to everything being at a distance rather than close at hand. One social downside of being in 'the burbs' is that friends no longer call in casually, as they used to do so often when we lived in the city centre; now they have to plan a trip. We still go into town for a variety of reasons, but don't miss living there because the tranquillity out here is beyond measure. A bit like Temple Bar during the Covid lockdowns, really.
Gizmodo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Real-World Places Behind ‘Andor' Season 2's Architectural Marvels
Andor, the live-action Star Wars prequel series created by Tony Gilroy and starring Diego Luna, concluded its second and final season last month. Spanning the years prior to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the series has garnered massive praise from Star Wars fans and critics alike for its deft storytelling, stirring lead performances, and majestic setpieces. This is especially true in the show's second season, which sees the former thief-turned-rebel-fighter on the run for his life while working as an agent saboteur and covert operative for Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), a spymaster laying the groundwork for what will eventually become the rebel alliance first glimpsed in the original Star Wars. From the wafting wheat fields of Mina-Rau and the cosmopolitan grandeur of the Ghorman Plaza, to the sprawling ecumenopolis of Coruscant, every location feels as lived-in as it is visually breathtaking. Coruscant, in particular, takes on renewed resonance in Andor season two. First glimpsed on-screen in a scene added to the 1997 re-release of Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, the capital of the Galactic Republic and later Empire appears much as it did in the prequel trilogy—a bricolage of glittering skyscrapers, Brutalist support columns, and endless lanes of hovercrafts tracing the sky like ley lines of iridescent silver—albeit rendered with a more practical heft and tactile depth than in any incarnation seen before. Andor's take on Coruscant took inspiration from many real-life architectural sights, specifically the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain. 'In the middle of season one [of Andor], I sort of identified certain architectural styles that would work for Coruscant like Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid,' Andor production designer Luke Hull told io9. 'I did a big location scouting trip before we went into production for season two, just to buildings I always found interesting and had good shape language for Star Wars. That took me to Paris, to Barcelona and Madrid, and even Portugal, and we looked at Valencia as well. So it was kind of a little bit of a weird European road trip, some of which was kind of a good reference, and some of which was like, 'Wow, I wish we could film here,' but we're not sure what [Andor season two] was yet. And then some of it was like, 'Okay, this really has the bones of something 'Upper Coruscant' about it,' which is what I thought Valencia had.' Designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, the futuristic 350,000-square-meter educational and cultural complex was built along the dry bed of the old Turia River, which was drained and diverted following a flood which devastated the nearby city in 1957. The project broke ground in 1991, with the first building, the Hemesferic—Spain's largest cinema and planetarium—opening in 1998. The complex was expanded over the next decade, with the most recent building, the Agora Plaza, completed in 2009. 'With this location in Valencia, you could just walk around in every corner of it, [and it] looked like Coruscant,' ILM visual effect supervisor Mohen Leon said in an interview for 'We ended up shooting so much and it perfectly meshed into our whole approach of trying to ground everything in locations, and then just enhance and augment them. So this location specifically really felt very upscale and formal in a way that you could believe that this could be government offices.' Fans of Andor will recognize the Prince Felipe Science Museum, a large building buffeted by large skeletal rib-like columns, as one of the centerpieces of the plaza adjourning the Imperial Senate Building, particularly for its appearance in season two's ninth episode, where Cassian Andor is tasked with rescuing Senator Mon Mothma from being arrested by the ISB. The Senate plaza wasn't the only location based on the City of Arts and Science, however, as two more locations—Davo Sculdun's palatial skyscraper seen in episode six and the final meeting place of Luthen Rael and his ISB mole Lonni Jung—were based on the Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts and the adjourning Montolivet Bridge, respectively. 'We knew we were going to only use up to a certain point on the plaza for the Senate anyway,' Hull told io9. 'Because we were going to put the Senate offices, basically, where the building was that we ultimately used for Davo Sculdun's building, we replaced that with the Senate offices. So then we were like, well, this building is up for grabs.' Hull added, 'I just really loved this idea that you could treat the bit at the front [of the Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts] as a sort of landing pad. You really feel all of Coruscant around you as you kind of bring the limo down. It's very glamorous and Bond-esque to kind of arrive that way and then also be able to see the partygoers through the glass from outside. It's kind of rare that you get this opportunity. I love filming on location anyway, but I've always fought very hard to try and film on location because I do think it gives us scope that CGI can't give. CGI can give scale, but it can't give scope all the time.' The same fastidious level of attention was also given to the costume designs of the people within the Senate. Michael Wilkinson, the costume designer for Andor, worked hand in hand with Hull to craft clothing for the senators and staff that felt grounded with complexity and reality. '[Coruscant] is a really good example, because you have so many different types of people at the Senate, and the audience has to very quickly understand who's who and who's doing what,' Wilkinson told io9. 'So we have senators at the very top of the pyramid; they're from all different corners of the galaxy and represent lots of different cultures. So we had to sort of try and express that through their clothing. Then you have the people that sort of work at the Senate; the more bureaucratic people, the senator's aides, the people who help run the Senate, so they have a very different type of costume as well, nothing quite as grand as the senators, a little bit more like the Star Wars equivalent of an everyday corporate look. Then we had Senate security, so they needed a uniform, and then we also had the journalists and the people from the outside world that have come to report about the things that are happening at the Senate.' Andor isn't the only sci-fi series to feature Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences. The campus has been indelibly embedded within the visual lexicon of modern science fiction, with appearances in such shows as Westworld as the exterior of DELOS headquarters and in the 2017 episode 'Smile' of Doctor Who. It also appeared on the big screen Brad Bird's 2015 sci-fi drama Tomorrowland. When asked why he thinks why the City of Arts and Sciences exerts such a powerful influence on the collective imagination of artists and directors alike, Hull was quick to credit the scope and diversity of Calatrava's vision for the complex's structure. 'It's just so innately science fiction, and there's the scale of it,' Hull said. 'The scale is monumental. It's a very coherent, encapsulated vision. There's a lot to play with. It's not just one building, and it's so rare to find that. For our purposes, I really felt it just embodied some of Star Wars' visual language. I mean, everything Calatrava designs looks like it's from the future, so it's sort of inherently going to attract that sort of type of filmmaking and in order to tell those types of stories.'While writing this piece, I learned that a group of Spanish Star Wars fans met up at the City of Arts and Sciences to celebrate May the Fourth in 2005, mere days before the theatrical premiere of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and nearly 20 years before the campus itself would appear in Andor. Knowing that, it feels like nothing short of an act of the Force to see Calatrava's masterpiece finally make its appearance in a galaxy far, far away.
New York Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- New York Times
$1.4 Million Homes in Valencia, Spain
Sant Francesc | $1.37 million (1.2 million euros) Valencia, the capital of the eponymous Spanish province on the coast of the Balearic Sea, offers a diversity of lifestyles, anchored by its artistic and culinary traditions, the City of Arts and Sciences cultural and architectural complex designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, and The Falles, a local festival held each March. Until 2013, the city hosted the Formula One European Grand Prix; it hosts the final race of the Grand Prix motorcycle racing (MotoGP) each November. Valencia is served by an international airport and high-speed trains from Madrid, 227 miles northwest, and Barcelona, 217 miles north along the coastline. This four-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment is on the top floor of a four-story building in Sant Francesc, a neighborhood in the city's Old Town and site of Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the lively town hall square. The 1920 building, with four apartments per floor, is close to the historic Central Market of Valencia, Europe's largest fresh-produce market and one of the city's premier examples of Valencian Art Nouveau style. Also nearby are the Museo Nacional de Cerámica y Artes Suntuarias 'González Martí and the Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero museum. Size: 2,475 square feet Price per square foot: $554 Indoors: The four-bedroom unit has been refurbished by a renowned Spanish designer with exposed brick and steel beams, and Catalan-vault ceilings. The updated amenities in the open-format design include high-end kitchen appliances, a counter that can be concealed behind wood paneling, a wine cabinet, double-glazed windows, exposed brick, air-conditioning and underfloor heating in all rooms. The primary bedroom has a sitting area with a vanity and a stand-alone tub. Outdoor space: The building has a shared terrace. Costs: The annual IBI tax is approximately $571 (500 euros) and the common fees are $685 (600 euros) per quarter Contact: Berta Prieto | Lucas Fox | +34-692-941-354 Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Time of India
08-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Is Dubai's Burj Khalifa about to lose its crown? Abandoned skyscraper's comeback could reshape the skyline
Dubai, a city where the skyline never sleeps and architectural ambition knows no bounds, might soon witness a monumental reshuffle in its race to the heavens. For years, the towering Burj Khalifa—standing at a dizzying 830 metres—has reigned supreme as the tallest structure on Earth, symbolizing Dubai's glittering promise of wealth, imagination, and engineering marvel. But lurking in the shadows is a long-forgotten, billion-dollar contender that once aimed to shatter every record. — XTravelMyWay (@XTravelMyWay) The Rise, Fall, and Possible Rise Again of Dubai Creek Tower First unveiled in 2016 with grandiose ambition and a jaw-dropping $1 billion investment, the Dubai Creek Tower was not just another high-rise. Designed by famed Spanish-Swiss architect Santiago Calatrava, the structure was envisioned as a 1,300-metre-high masterpiece inspired by Islamic minarets. It was to be the crown jewel of Dubai Creek Harbour—a new-age marvel with sky gardens, 10 observation decks, and a luxury hotel perched among the clouds. It promised an experience higher, grander, and more futuristic than anything the Burj Khalifa offered. With its striking silhouette and poetic architectural intent, it was heralded as the future of Dubai's vertical dream. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Canada is looking for skilled immigrants - New job opportunities are waiting for you! Canada Immigration Express Apply Now But by 2018, the dream began to crumble. Progress halted. The pandemic only deepened the silence around the project. By early 2019, even the construction staging areas lay abandoned—just a massive foundation pit in the desert where greatness once aimed to grow. New Hope in a Changed Vision Fast forward to 2024, and Emaar Properties—the developers behind the tower and the Burj Khalifa—have announced plans to revisit the dormant giant. This time, however, there's a twist. The redesign reportedly scales down the height, meaning the revised tower may no longer aim to surpass the Burj Khalifa. Official blueprints have not been made public yet, and while there's talk of renewed ambition, physical construction remains absent. In essence, the tower is alive on paper—but still asleep in reality. You Might Also Like: Trump Organization plans skyscraper development in Ho Chi Minh City as Eric Trump visits Vietnam The question now gripping architecture buffs and Dubai-watchers alike: will it ever rise to challenge its older sibling, or will it remain a mirage in the city's ambitious skyline? While the Dubai Creek Tower remains in limbo, the wider Dubai Creek Harbour project has quietly made progress. Residential blocks now line the banks of the historic 14-kilometre waterway, and public infrastructure has begun transforming the area into a modern urban oasis. But without its signature skyscraper, the heart of the development still beats with a question mark. A Battle of Icons or a Legacy Left Behind? Dubai has always sold dreams in steel and glass, and its skyline is a testament to that. Whether or not Dubai Creek Tower rises from the ashes of abandonment, its story speaks volumes about the city's relentless pursuit of architectural immortality—and the high stakes that come with it. For now, the Burj Khalifa remains unchallenged. But in a city where anything is possible, even a sleeping titan may awaken. You Might Also Like: Digital detox tourism trend: Why travelers are now paying to have their phones taken away?
