While the United States may no longer be the home of the world's tallest building, it is the home of the architect behind the tallest skyscraper on the globe. Pushing Chicago's Sears Tower out of the No. 1 spot is a New Haven architectural firm. Rather than gracing their home soil, the Petronas Towers, as the complex will be called, is being built in Southeast Asia. Still under construction, Petronas Towers is a symbol of East meeting West.
Cesar Pelli & Associates, based across from Old Campus on upper Chapel Street, won an international competition in 1991 for the rights to design the Petronas Towers. The 88 story twin towers, slated for completion in 1997, will grace the skyline of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Pelli, hailed as the nation's "foremost high-rise architect" by The Chicago Tribune, credits his firm's success in the project to his efforts to involve Malaysian architectural traditions in the new towers. The New Haven architect writes that he "tried to respond to the climate [of Kuala Lumpur], and to the dominant Islamic culture" in creating the Petronas Towers.
This rapid Asian construction signifies a dramatic shift in the world economy towards the Pacific Rim, and American firms such as Cesar Pelli are ready to help. Ten years ago, six of the world's 10 tallest buildings were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Today, American architectural marvels such as the the Empire State Building and Seattle's AT&T Gateway Center are being dwarfed by projects in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Seoul.
In an article in The Chicago Tribune -a newspaper from the city whose Sears Tower is now dubbed "the world's tallest real estate disaster"-David Birch, the president of a New England-based marketing and research firm, cites declining American economic fortunes as the reason for the nation's inability to keep up with Asian construction. Given the downsizing of American corporations and the 1980s construction boom, "there is no logical reason to ever build another Empire State Building" in America, Birch said.
So American firms are taking their chances elsewhere, including New Haven's very own Pelli. "These buildings grow towards a shining future" in Malaysia, the architect writes.
The new skyscrapers will be a part of the new Kuala Lumpur City Centre and are a symbol of Malaysia's rapid rise towards the ranks of developed countries. The complex will include the Petronas twin towers, three smaller glass skyscrapers, a retail center, a public park, and one of the largest mosques in the predominantly Muslim country. Pelli's firm is responsible for the design and construction of both the twin towers and the commercial retail center.
In the words of Pelli, the Petronas Towers "express the new Malaysia that is being made, a rapidly industrializing country with a dynamic economy."
The towers, rising 1,482.6 feet, will be slightly taller than several American skyscrapers. Beyond Malaysia, the rapidly industrializing Asian nations of China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore also have plans to try to outdistance the Malaysian buildings in the next decade. With such buildings, the future of modern architecture appears to be heading to the Far East along with the talents of US architects like Pelli.
Photo courtesy of J. Apicella/CP&A..
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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