German architects snub world's tallest building in Dubai

Jan 4, 2010, 15:36 GMT

Berlin - German architects have snubbed the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper which opened Monday, calling the 800-metre tower a bad example for building design.

In Europe, the emphasis was on refurbishing and upgrading existing buildings rather than building more, bigger developments, according to the German architects' association DAI.

'Nobody knows where the planning hubris of the sheikhs will lead,' said the DAI's president, Christian Baumgart.

'One thing is sure though: what has become a glass and ferroconcrete desert hardly represents a sustainable contribution to building practices around the world,' Baumgart added.

German architect Meinhard von Gerkan called the skyscraper 'an economically pointless symbol of prestige, representing the power of money.'

Gerkan, who designed Berlin's central train station, said in a radio interview that such buildings never made a profit, as the building and maintenance costs were astronomical.

It was no surprise that the tower had been erected in an Islamic country rather than somewhere like the US, 'where rationality (..) plays a greater role than the need to demonstrate power,' Gerkan told Deutschlandradio Kultur.

The gleaming glass and steel tower of more than 160 floors, designed by British architect Adrian Smith, is some 300 metres taller than the current record holder, Taipei 101.