The 1 km tower - the chase for doomsday

First of all we have to acknowledge that there are mentally challenge tycoons out there who think massive tall erections are the order of the day!!

Forgive me for the pun, but Kingdom Holdings, the company owned by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said last year it has launched plans to build in Saudi Arabia the world's tallest tower which will be at least 1,000 metres high as part of a $26.7 billion project.

In the latest news report cited by Kosmo! from AFP today (click pic above), Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said his company will fast track the proposed plan.

The report also mentioned that new tower when built will beat the latest record held by the Burj Khalifa Tower in United Arab Emirates. The Burj Tower in Dubai which stands at 828 metres was on 4 January 2010 named the highest building in the world.

Last year a Middle East-based weekly digest reported that the 1 km tower project has been shelved due to the current economic climate and that the project was on hold indefinitely.

But a media spokesperson of the company had vehemently denied the claims.

"We would like to make it clear that (the media) has published false and wrong information regarding the Kingdom's Jeddah project," the spokesperson said to Construction Week, the weekly digest which carried the report.

The full report here.

Do you know why Prince Alwaleed is so anxious and fixated to build this tower with his erected wealth? Give me a guess...!

Never mind, but did you know that the Kingdom Holding's initial plans was to have a mile-long tower (read here).

Now they have shortened it by 600 metres. I guess the original plan was too imaginative, even by his royal highness standard!

So now, they will have to do with a shortened erection...he..he..!

Learned and practicing Muslim must have come across the hadith or the prophet Muhammad S.A.W. saying: Engkau melihat hamba perempuan yang melahirkan anak yang menjadi tuannya, orang-orang yang bangsat dan papa, bertelanjang kerana tidak ada pakaian, yang berkaki ayam dan gembala-gembala kambing, tiba-tiba mereka berlumba-lumba mendirikan bangunan-bangunan yang tinggi, kemudian lelaki itu berundur....

The complete hadith here.

So there you are, the chase for wealth, power and fame has reach ultra heights, and so does people's pride and ego, which is shown by this example.

I can't imagine what will happen if Malaysia too is on the list of the rat race of building super high ego towers. Read de minimis: 100-storey skycrapers planned for Kuala Lumpur for context.