Burj Khalifa – world’s tallest structure

Today, I stood in the tallest man-made structure ever built. Man’s attempt to reach the skies measures 828 meters high (2717 ft). In comparison, the second tallest freestanding structure, the CN Tower in Toronto, spans 553 meters. The Burj has 160 floors and the whole structure is about 200 stories tall.

The observation deck they brought us to was only on the 124th floor (452 m), but included an amazing outdoor section where you could see up to 95 km on a clear day (but today was foggy unfortunately). The elevator took only 1 minute to go up 124 stories averaging around 10 m/s while reaching speeds of 18 m/s, but it was very smooth and you would have no idea you were going so high if it weren’t for the changing pressures in your ears.

This incredible engineering feat cost $1.5 billion US dollars to build and has too many world records to go over. It does have the highest swimming pool in the world on the 76th floor though. The Khalifa is part of a bigger ‘Downtown Dubai’ project that is costing around $20 billion dollars. If you are really into structural engineering, definitely check out one of the shows about the construction of the tower on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic.

After scaling the tower, we headed to the Dubai Mall, not shockingly, the world’s largest indoor shopping mall with has over 1200 shops. It has every store you could think of and you could find in your local mall in Canada or the US. Annamey Pierse and I headed straight to the huge aquarium which holds over 10 million liters of water, the world’s largest of course, and then the world’s largest candy store. Yes, I am pretty sure the government of Dubai got ahold of the Guinness Book of world records in the year 2000 and then went out to try to break as many of them as they could.

The Burj Khalifa probably will not be out built for a number of years and is a magnificent architectural feat, but still pales in comparison to standing on top of a mountain overlooking other breathtaking mountains, forests, lakes, and valleys. Nothing can compare to the natural beauty of this earth and the creation that was here before we came along. Mt. Everest reaches 8,848 m high which is more than ten times the height of Khalifa. I have stood on man’s best attempt to reach the skies, and although it is an incredible feat, man will never surpass God’s creation.