Vertical Cities Expo, an exhibit celebrating many of the world’s most ambitious buildings and tallest skyscrapers, opened in the TU Delft Library on 11 May. Featuring dozens of models at a scale of 1:1000, it offers a fascinating glimpse into the past, present, and potential future of high-rises.
Exhibition designer Harry Hoek carefully crafted each one of the expo’s structures, which include the infamous Sagrada Família in Barcelona and Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building. “I made them all in my spare time and it took me five years,” Hoek explained during a presentation on the expo’s opening day at TU Delft. “My favourite building is Tatlin’s Tower, the proposed Monument to the Third International from 1919.”
Along with Tatlin’s Tower, Hoek also constructed other miniature versions of proposed skyscrapers by master architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. In the late 1950s, Wright designed ‘The Illinois,’ a visionary high-rise that would have dominated the Chicago skyline and stood over 1,600 meters high. While the acclaimed American architect thoughtfully pencilled in enough parking for 15,000 cars and 150 helicopters, it was never built for obvious reasons.
The presentation also included a lecture by Jan Klerk, a ‘skyscraperist’ who serves as the organiser of the Rotterdam Construction Site Festival. He discussed the reasons why skyscrapers keep getting taller and why modern architects love to design them, even though many of them never make it past the concept phase. “You still see these designs today,” Klerk said. “If there’s an architectural competition, someone always comes up with a very tall building. The message is that if you have something to say and you want to prove yourself, just come up with a very tall building and the press will come calling and you’ll get a lot of attention.”
The expo features conceptual structures that are even more colossal than Wright’s epic dream project. The immense Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid serves as Vertical Cities’ centrepiece. Conceived as a possible solution to Tokyo’s ongoing housing crisis, the jumbo-sized building would contain living quarters for a million residents. However, experts predict that the soonest the pyramid could welcome its first homeowners is sometime around 2110.
Vertical Cities closes on 9 July and also includes an exposition of books from the library’s collection. There is also a model on display in the Architecture Faculty Library.
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