South Korea joins rush to build ever taller buildings

Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur

This is an interesting enough story in its own right, but that's not why I'm posting about it. Note the emphasis I've added.

On a stretch of reclaimed land, near where General Douglas MacArthur's forces came ashore during the Korean War, this city will build a towering monument to its rising ambitions: twin skyscrapers reaching 2,013 feet into the sky, higher than the tallest building in the world today.

Developers in neighboring Seoul responded by increasing the height of a skyscraper they were planning by 66 feet. In December, the chief of a Seoul ward announced an even more grandiose plan to erect a 220-story building that, at almost 3,200 feet, would be twice as high as the Sears Tower in Chicago.

Uh, reclaimed land for the world's tallest building? Doesn't sound like a good plan to me.

I chose the Petronas Towers for the illustration because:

1. They used to be the world's tallest.
2. They're beautiful.
3. They're, like, uh, towers.

(read more)