As the sun rises over London, it’s plain to see that this city is home to some magnificent structures. But as the traffic swells from the motorways and main roads to side streets and shortcuts, as plumes of ant-like commuters burst from trains onto platforms, it becomes clear that this is a city of people - not objects.
Looking down from one of the many skyscrapers at this formulaic dance, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is an incredibly efficient city. However, these towers are making the city less efficient, less affordable and less hospitable.
It was in New York that the idea of building upwards rather than outwards took off. With limited space in Manhattan, buildings soon had dozens of floors - creating more working and living space. Before long, these construction techniques were being used all over the world, providing major cities with a brand new skyline.
The idea of “living on top of each other” certainly isn’t without its detractors. But while high rises and office blocks were built with utility and resourcefulness in mind, modern skyscrapers are home to huge open spaces, empty boardrooms and unsold apartments.
The Sterick building in Memphis, Tennessee, shows just how long a skyscraper can stand empty for. Despite Memphis’ housing problem and growing demands to regenerate the area, this huge building has stood empty for more than 30 years.
A thousand miles away in New York, One Times Square now serves only to display adverts to passersby. In a city with one of the starkest divides between rich and poor, this 110,000 square foot skyscraper is neither a night shelter nor a soup kitchen.
Celebrated as the location of the New Year’s Eve ball drop, its woefully empty interior always escapes a mention. The vast majority of its 24 stories are unoccupied - home only to the company which organises the ball drop and a Walgreens pharmacy, on the ground floor.
Dubai, which sprouted from the Arabian Desert in the last two and a half decades, is the proverbial weed of urban construction. Vast sections of Dubai’s skyscrapers - in addition to thousands of homes - remain unused. Yet it is still watered by venture capitalists as it continues to swell beyond a size that is needed.
Meanwhile in China, fundamental infrastructural and economic misunderstandings have led to the construction of literally hundreds of ghost cities. The physical framework for countless communities, they are currently waiting or wasting, depending on your outlook.
In many cases, large buildings change hands only by way of investment or bailout. Older buildings are costly to regenerate while newer ones often cause millions of dollars of debt, requiring further investment prior to being cosmetically complete. So what do we have to look forward to if these towers are indeed completed?
The Shard, the iconic pyramidical spike soaring into the clouds on London’s Southbank, is the embodiment of both cutting edge design and metropolitan architecture. However, it is also a symbol of decadence and exclusivity. The residences at the Shard boast views all the way out to the Thames Estuary and cost up to £50m. Though when I say “cost”, that’s intended in the past tense. Eight years after its completion, not only have none of these luxury apartments been sold - they’ve also been taken off the market.
Wealth inequality is nothing new in London but this situation is far from normal. The Shard’s Qatari owners refused to drop the prices, seemingly not wanting to “cheapen” the apartments. It’s hard not to plot their downfall against the Gartner hype curve, especially when the initial rise to the peak of inflated expectations and subsequent fall to the trough of disillusionment seem to create a Shard-like shape. But there is no slope of enlightenment - no point at which the apartments were revalued and the prices dropped.
It’s been said that one of the key issues in selling these residences is the super wealthy not wanting to live south of the river. That said, they don’t seem to want to live north of the river either. The Bishops Avenue, fondly known as Billionaires Row, is largely unoccupied. In the same time it’s taken to build Dubai into a gold-plated leviathan, these mansions have slipped into dilapidation, their foreign owners having stopped visiting their North London holiday homes many years ago.
However, it seems we’re only getting more wasteful and modern construction strategies reflect this desire for style over substance. In many cases, the uppermost levels of a skyscraper are not habitable - built only to make the structure taller. “We noticed in Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, that a fair amount of the top of the building seemed to be an unoccupied spire,” stated the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).
“This prompted us to investigate the increasing trend towards extreme spires and other extensions of tall buildings,” continued CTBUH, “that do not enclose usable space, and create a new term to describe this - vanity height.”
Half-building, half-sculpture, modern skyscrapers seem to have lost sight of their purpose. In some cases, their owners have taken the idea of “speculate to accumulate” to dangerous extremes.
The value of anything is determined by what people believe it to be worth. In the case of ultra luxury homes, the target market is a demographic whose options are extremely limited due to the level of luxury they demand. So just a couple of sales at overinflated prices is all it takes for these apartments to be deemed to be worth that amount.
Meanwhile, older skyscrapers and high rises are considered too expensive to regenerate as buyers are more interested in investing in or buying new property. The economic impact of the global pandemic will sadly see even more regeneration projects, as well as new builds, put on hold.
Clearly, there are a vast number of factors contributing to this phenomenon. But it seems that two prominent ones are greed and the polarisation of wealth. A hypnotic hybrid of art and ego, these buildings have come to represent a society divided.
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