Vanity height is defined by the

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...

(CTBUH) as the height difference between a skyscraper's pinnacle and the highest usable floor (usually observatory, office, restaurant, retail or hotel/residential). Because the CTBUH ranks the

world's tallest buildings The world's tallest human-made structure is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (of the United Arab Emirates). The building gained the official title of "tallest building in the world" and the tallest self-supported structure at its opening on January ...

by height to pinnacle, a number of buildings appear higher in the rankings than they otherwise would due to extremely long

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

s. The controversy began when the

Petronas Towers The Petronas Towers, also known as the Petronas Twin Towers or KLCC Twin Towers, (Malay: ''Menara Berkembar Petronas'') are 88-storey supertall skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, standing at . From 1998 to 2003, they were officially design ...

were named as the world's tallest buildings in 1998, despite having a roof 63.4 m (208 ft) lower than that of the

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108-story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), ...

. The current world's tallest building,

Burj Khalifa The Burj Khalifa (; ar, برج خليفة, , Khalifa Tower), known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is known for being the world’s tallest building. With a total height ...

, is officially 828 meters tall, but its highest usable floor is 585m above ground. Therefore, its vanity height is defined as 244 meters, or 29% of the building's total height. Without this vanity height the Burj Khalifa would still be the tallest building in the world, but only by 2 meters. The next potential tallest building, the

Jeddah Tower Jeddah Tower ( ar, برج جدة), previously known as Kingdom Tower (), is a skyscraper construction project currently on hold. Located on the north side of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it is planned to be the first tall building, and the centrep ...

, could be over 1,000 meters tall but its highest floor is planned to be 630m above ground. The top 370m (equivalent to an 85-story building) or 37% of the building's total height will be unusable. When vanity height is excluded, the height progression of the world's tallest buildings looks much more modest in comparison.See

History of the world's tallest buildings The tallest building in the world, as of , is the Burj Khalifa. The title of " world's tallest building" has been borne by various buildings, such as the Lincoln Cathedral, the Empire State Building and the original World Trade Center. Before the ...

for details The CTBUH requires a structure's vanity height to be under 50% to be defined as a "building." Otherwise, it is considered a

communications tower Radio masts and towers are typically tall structures designed to support antennas for telecommunications and broadcasting, including television. There are two main types: guyed and self-supporting structures. They are among the tallest human-made ...

and ineligible for the rankings.

References

Skyscrapers Architectural design {{architecture-stub

See also

References