Burj Khalifa

25.1975°N, 55.2743°E.

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — the tallest building in the world at 828 metres, opened in January 2010. The structure was designed by Adrian Smith for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in a Y-shaped plan with three asymmetrical wings around a central core, intended both to maximise rentable floor space at every level and to disrupt the wind-driven oscillations that affect every supertall building. The 163-occupied-floor tower contains corporate offices, the Armani Hotel, residential apartments, and observation decks at the 124th, 125th, and 148th floors. The building was named at its opening for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi — whose financial bailout of Dubai during the 2009 emirate-level debt crisis prompted the renaming from the original project name (Burj Dubai). The construction took six years and required approximately 110,000 tonnes of concrete and 39,000 tonnes of structural steel.

The tallest building on Earth, in a city whose name on the building was changed at the last moment in exchange for the rescue of the city's finances by the neighbouring emirate.