Talk:Skyscraper

Removed from the Skyscraper page:

This list is almost certainly out of date. Please correct it!

The CN Tower in Toronto is the world's tallest free-standing structure and is recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the tallest building in the world, why is it not listed on this page? it's 447m (1,465ft.) tall measuring to the sky pod, the highest level where people can go inside the building, so it should be #3 on the list even when you discount the antenna. http://www.cntower.ca/

I guess the previous compiler's rules exclude the CN tower completely, as it is an antenna, and they don't count antennae.

But not all of the tower is antenna; I specifically limited the height I listed above to be that of the highest human-habitable floor rather than the top of the antenna. The main page says that this is a list of the tallest buildings, and also that these are all the buildings over 300m, so the CN Tower wouldn't be excluded under that description. I think it should either be included, or the criteria for its exclusion should be made explicit.

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What about Centrepoint Tower in Sydney? Its 326m high... And its not an antenna (it has an observation deck and revolving resturaunt at the top, along with communications equipment)... although, I don't know if the 326m is to the roof or the the top of the antenna-like spire (IIRC, its not actually an antenna) on the roof... (Another source I just found says its only 305m high... but thats still above 300m.)

Also, maybe we should mention the Rialto Towers? There only about 250m tall, but they are the tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere (though not the tallest building...) -- SJK

That's the trick. Those wiley chambers of commerce will add another 10 feet of ornamental mast and call it the tallest! I once read an idiosyncratic distinction between 'skyscrapers', 'towers', and 'radiomasts' - Skyscrapers have to have inhabitable space for at least 80% of their height (big radiomast on top is not a disqualifcation, in other words); towers are nothing but an elevator shaft with a restaurant on top even if they also broadcast (sounds like Centrepoint is one of those; CN and the Space Needle in Seattle certainly are); and radio towers are just that with no other occupants. I like it, but I can't find it on my shelves (I unloaded most of my 20th c. architecture a few moves ago). However, I've never seen another attempt to quantify skyscraper vs. tower. I hate "structure" as a synonym for "building" - the 'structure' is the system which holds the building up. But that's a pedantic distinction. --MichaelTinkler

Well, the bottom so many floors of Centrepoint Tower are 10-20 floors of shopping (and I think offices). And then the floors below end, and its just a thin tower, with lift shafts, fire stairs and services for a big distance, and then you get to the top bit, which is wider and is something like 4 or 5 stories high... and then theres more stuff on top of that (during the Sydney Olympics, they had giant statutes on top, from which they launched fireworks...) But its probably uninhabitable tower for more than half its height... so I suppose, by that definition, its not a skyscraper, just a tower... -- SJK

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The table that was previously on this page was pretty much cut and paste in, including explanatory notes, from [1]. This is not only copyrighted (though the information, of course, isn't, the presentation certainly is), it is copyrighted by a potential competitor of Wikipedia--someone who has a financial motivation to try to sue us for violations like this. Please be careful about things like this. --LMS