According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s newly released annual report (CTBUH) Tall Trends of 2019, there are now 170 supertall buildings worldwide while 94 (over 50 per cent) of these have been built just over the past five years. In 2013, there were 76 buildings 300 metres or higher worldwide and only 26 in 2000.
The 530-metre Tianjin CTF Finance Centre in Tianjin, China, was the tallest building completed in 2019.
“This is the fifth year in a row that a building over 500 meters has been completed, which is a remarkable accomplishment for the building industry- it was only 15 years ago that such buildings didn’t exist,” said CTBUH CEO Antony Wood.
However, the number of completed buildings of at least 200 meters in 2019 declined for the first time since 2011, by 13.7 percent from 146 in 2018. Most of the buildings completed this year were conceived or initiated five years ago, a testament to the inherent long lead times in skyscraper construction.
Some countries broke the 200-metre mark for the first time in 2019. In African, Algeria received the 265-metre Great Mosque of Algiers while in South Africa, The Leonardo (227 metres) in Johannesburg, became that nation’s new tallest building, and the second-tallest building on the continent. However, most African countries are still trying to break the 200-metre mark.
In 2020, CTBUH projects the expected number of completions for 200-meter-plus buildings to be between 115 and 145. Of these, between 17 and 30 are expected to be supertalls with at least 300 metres.
Read; Tallest building completions maintain momentum in 2018
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