In 2001 Malaysia’s twin Petronas Towers tied each other for the honor of the tallest building in the world. By the middle of this decade they will no longer crack the top 10. Buildings currently under construction are expected to take spots two through seven on the world’s tallest list (for the time being the Burj Khalifa remains in a class of its own), another indicator that the world’s appetite for statement-making skyscrapers shows no sign of waning. In this interactive we feature each of the 10 tallest in 2016, along with some interesting outliers. For each building, we list its location, height, completion date (future dates are necessarily estimates), design architect and the engineering firm.
Read more about the skyline of 2016 in the September issue of Scientific American.
Illustration by Bryan Christie Design; Flash by Ryan Reid
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Michael Moyer is the editor in charge of physics and space coverage at Scientific American. Previously he spent eight years at Popular Science magazine, where he was the articles editor. He was awarded the 2005 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award for his article "Journey to the 10th Dimension," and has appeared on CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox and the Discovery Channel. He studied physics at the University of California at Berkeley and at Columbia University. Follow Michael Moyer on Twitter