Security will be tight on Monday evening for the opening of the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai. An opulent fireworks display and a dazzling light show are planned, along with a choreographed water show by the Dubai Fountain at the foot of the 818 meter (2,684 foot) high tower.
Yet even as the world gazes in amazement at the astounding structure, the company which designed the tower said it could have been even higher. "We were able to tune the building like we tune a music instrument," Bill Baker, a structural engineer with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which designed the Burj Dubai, told the news agency AFP. "As we went higher and higher, we discovered that by doing that process ... we were able to reach heights much higher than we ever thought we could.... I would think we could easily do a one kilometer building."
Still, the new symbol of Dubai is more than 1,000 feet taller than the next tallest skyscraper, the Taipei 101. Originally, it was set to only just edge out its counterpart in Taiwan by a mere 10 meters, but Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum kept pushing for the building to grow even taller, even during construction.
In the process, the Burj Dubai became a wealth of trivia for skyscraper enthusiasts. SPIEGEL ONLINE brings you the most interesting facts about the world's newest tallest building.
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The Burj Dubai, which celebrates its grand opening on Monday, has easily laid claim to being the tallest building in the world. At 818 meters (2,684 feet), it is over 1,000 feet taller than the previous record holder, the Taipei 101. Dubai's newest symbol of megalomaniacal opulence can be seen from Bedouin oases in the desert up to 100 kilometers away.
Mary Gaturu, 28, from Nairobi, Kenya, sells souvenirs at the observation deck on the 124th floor. It is the highest outdoor observation deck in the world. On Monday, it was announced that the Burj Dubai cost a total of $1.5 billion to build, or around $9 million per floor. During construction, a new floor was added roughly every four days.
Looking out from one of the sky lobbies. The completion of the Burj Dubai brings the title of the world's tallest manmade structure back to the Middle East after 700 years. The Great Pyramid of Giza had held the title for almost 4,000 years before the 1311 construction of the Lincoln Cathedral in England.
The tower is so tall that temperatures at the very top are up to 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than at its base. Should a window at the top and a door at the bottom be opened at the same time -- along with all the airlocks in between -- a phenomenon called the "chimney effect" would unleash a storm ripping the interior of the building apart.
The tower's construction is patterned on the structure of the Hymenocallis flower, whose shape was found to greatly reduce wind pressure on the building. The building appears to spiral slightly as it tapers upward -- a design resulting in several terraces. The terrace on the 78th floor holds an outdoor pool.
The view from the observation deck. The building hosts several floors of private residences in addition to corporate suites and a hotel designed by Giorgio Armani. The hotel placed an order with the Bavarian porcelain maker Rosenthal for 15,200 plates and cups. The German appliance maker Miele supplied 7,650 household appliances to the building, the biggest order in the company's history. Duravit provided 4,000 bidets and toilets.
Special, high-performance concrete pumps had to be designed to deliver concrete to the 156th floor, with the remaining levels built exclusively of steel. Because of scorching daytime temperatures in the gulf, concrete was only poured at nighttime.
A pay-telescope on the observation deck. The tower's construction will have taken 22 million man-hours with up to 14,000 workers from 45 different countries laboring on the project. Many of them were paid as little as 12 euros a day or less. A labor dispute in March 2006 briefly slowed the building's construction.
All eyes will be on Dubai on Monday for the grand opening of the building. But it comes at an inauspicious time for Dubai, just weeks after a $25 billion bailout from neighboring Abu Dhabi. Dubai's total debt amounts to $100 billion. Still, developers claim that 95 percent of the properties in the Burj Dubai have been sold.
The tower is expected to hold up to 25,000 people at a time. They will be able to travel through the building in 57 elevators, the fastest of which will rise at 10 meters (33 feet) per second. It is estimated that, despite special cradles and buckets attached to tracks installed on the outside of the building, it will take as long as four months to clean the outside facade.
The Burj Dubai has a total usable area of 5.67 million square feet (526,760 square meters), which includes 1.85 million square feet of residential space and 300,000 square feet of prime office space. There are 1,044 apartments in the tower.
