Vanity height. Now there’s a word the Oxford dictionary should have added to its list of new words for the 3rd quarter of 2013.
Early this month, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) revealed the sins of many new skyscrapers in the world—that of adding vanity height in the form of spires, towers, extensions, and whatnot just for the sake of adding height to the structure.
Burj Al Arab’s vanity height, according to CTBUH (Image from www.ctbuh.org)
Other than a brief mention in the pages of Guiness World Records, this extra height is practically useless and well, pure vanity.
According to the report, the biggest culprit is the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, with its vanity height comprising as much as 39 percent of the structure’s entire height, while the remaining 61{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} is occupiable space. Thirty nine percent. That’s a lot of wasted space.
And yet, according to CTBUH, vanity height among buildings is an “increasing trend”.
Vanity Height and Phallic Symbols
In the past, it was just the addition of television and radio antennas that easily boosted a building’s height, although that sort of thing is debated now. What matters for some is the building’s absolute height, while for others it’s okay to include spires and permanent architectural features (but not antennas or flagpoles) in the final measurement.
Clearly, usable and occupiable space should be another criterion.
Which leads us to the question, what drives builders to add vanity height to their skyscrapers in the first place? What sort of incentives does one get from extending a building’s height far more than necessary?
One might say, with extensions such as antennas, at least some purpose has been served. But what about that extra space many buildings insist on just for the sake of height. Does it contribute to the building’s energy efficiency? Is it used as an observatory? Unless we’re missing something, there has got to be some incentive building owners get from it, or else they wouldn’t be wasting money on it.
How they stack up against each other. Vanity height diagrammed.
Maybe it’s all just about vanity. The simple triumph of being regarded as one of the tallest in the world. After all, when you build high, you might as well go all the way.
To put it in sociological context, whether we admit it or not, skyscrapers are still phallic symbols one way or another, signifying male power and authority, forcefully jutting out of the landscape like a massive erection. In a city teeming with skyscrapers and other tall structures, it’s not enough for one’s ego to be just tall—you have to be the tallest.
Vanity Height: Why, Oh Why.
So why do building owners insist on vanity height? Our guess is the rewards (recognition) outweigh the costs (money used to build the additional structure).
But come to think of it, that superfluous structure didn’t just get there in the blink of an eye. Massive resources from nature had to be used, equipment had to powered just to assemble the structure, and even there’s manpower too. Imagine all that wasted resources and energy just to add height to an already tall building.
So if we reward buildings for sustainability, how come we don’t penalize them for doing the exact opposite?
