Throughout history, powerful rulers have felt the need to express their power and satisfy their egos, by building ever-higher structures.
The Mayans in Guatemala built high buildings, as did the Koreans, the Iraqis, the Sri Lankans, and of course the Chinese. Then, around the 1880s, the Americans got in on the act, with the invention of the skyscraper.
Developers routinely seek to push the envelope on height, in order to gain more rentable space and make the structure more economically viable. Exactly what are we proving to ourselves by designing and building higher and higher buildings?
The consensus is that any building over one kilometre tall will require two or three buildings at the base, with connections between, or among them, at higher elevations, in order to provide stability and bracing. To put this height into perspective, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the current tallest building at 818 meters.
This is expected to reach one kilometre when completed in 2018. Tall buildings require sophisticated methods of getting people up and down.
The more robust bracing and structural systems required for such buildings also cost money. At some point, the cost of the infrastructure means the project is no longer cost effective. So, to answer the question as to why they do it. There may be several explanations. The owners want to be known for owning something famous. The builders want to be known for having built something famous.
But the object of the exercise is the same as it has always been – satisfying someone’s ego.