People have long learned to build tall houses, now many live literally above the clouds. How did it all start?
The tallest house in the world. Home Insurance
In 1885, the world's first skyscraper, Home Insurance, was built in Chicago. Now it may sound funny, but it was only ten floors. The height of the building was forty-two meters. The house was designed by architect William LeBaron Jenny. His brainchild was not only the first high-rise, but also the first frame building. It was thanks to the frame of steel beams and curtain walls that it was possible to erect a structure of such a height. This also made it possible to later add two more floors to Home Insurance. The twelve-story skyscraper was demolished in 1931. In America, and in the rest of the world, more and more tall houses began to be built, and over time, the generally accepted category of "skyscraper" arose - a building with more than 150 floors.
The tallest house in the world. Burj Khalifa
One and a half centuries have passed (and in the scale of history this is not so much), and human ambitions have made it possible to build a building whose height is twenty times higher than the height of the first skyscraper. In January 2010, the official opening of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper took place in Dubai. Initially, it was planned to call it "Dubai Tower" ("Burj Dubai"), but then they decided to rename the colossal skyscraper in honor of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyanam, the President of the United Arab Emirates. The height of the building is 828 meters, it consists of 162 floors. Construction was carried out at a record pace, it began in 2004, and in a week the workers managed to build one or two floors. The staggeringly tall building, which cost $4 billion to build despite multiple revisions to the design documentation, was completed in just five years.
Comparison information. The tallest building of the late nineteenth century - the famous German Cologne Cathedral - was built for more than six hundred years. Construction began in 1248 and ended in 1880. The height of the cathedral was 157 meters.
Usually, such tall skyscrapers house hotels, shops and office space, but in "Burj Khalifa" they also made a thousand luxury residential apartments. The highest house in the world makes it possible to live "beyond the clouds", but for this you need to spend an exorbitant amount of money. The cost of one square meter of housing in it is from 10 to 20 thousand dollars.
The tallest house in the world. Mercury City Tower
In 2013, the construction of the Mercury City Tower skyscraper is being completed in Moscow. In total, it will have 77 above-ground and 5 underground floors. The height of the building is almost 340 meters, thanks to which the skyscraper has already received the title of "The Tallest House in Europe". There will berestaurants, shopping and entertainment areas, office space, apartments and a penthouse with panoramic windows, large underground parking.
In our capital there is also the longest house. In Moscow, in the Otradnoye district, on Rimsky-Korsakov Street, there is a house whose total length exceeds 1000 meters. It was not immediately so long, in different years new sections were attached to the house, so several postal addresses were assigned to one building. It takes almost an hour to walk around the house.
