Oh, dear God, will it ever stop? By now it's cliché to wax critically about the tendency for developing and newly advanced countries to whip out up larger and larger towers that anyone with half a brain can see are little more than phallic objects.
[above: "640 meters long and hard as steel" reads the brochure]I only bring this up since we have news this week that work began Friday on the DMC Landmark Tower at Digital Media City in Sang•am-dong, out by the World Cup Stadium in western Seoul.
When it's completed, it will be 640 meters tall — that's 372 kushibos standing one on top of the other — for a total of 133 floors.
The Chosun Ilbo article linked above is saying that this will be "Asia's tallest building" and the second tallest building in the world (a distinction I'm guessing will last for all of about six weeks until the Taiwanese, the Indonesians, the Malaysians, the Chinese, or the Arabs get into the act; the Japanese, blessed with earthquakes forcing them to keep their structures sanely close to the ground, generally don't get in on the act).
But if my fatigued brain's synapses are firing correctly, the CSI has got it wrong. The tallest building, they are saying, is the 160-story, 818-meter Burj Dubai being built by Samsung in the United Arab Emirates. Yeah, that UAE, the one in Asia.
Whoops! So that means to regain the consolation prize (which is what "tallest in Asia" is), they're going to have to add 180 meters to the Run DMC Plaza. I suggest a fountain of some kind. Coming off that structure above, it will just be so 잘 어울려.
Anyway, enough is enough. I appreciate the occasional vertical structure that can be seen from miles around so that I can get my bearings when I'm lost (Namsan Tower has often served as a beacon guiding me home), but this no longer borders on the ridiculous: It is firmly in deserves-to-be-mocked-relentlessly territory.
It's time we admit the truth about this unhealthy obsession with taller and taller phallic structures: Korea, like many of its neighbors, suffers from erectophile dysfunction.
I don't know why the Indonesians aren't more cautious, as tectonically active as their home is.
ReplyDeleteThat's hot.
ReplyDeletehow difficult is it to design a modern skyscraper that isn't suggestively-shaped?
ReplyDeleteit's tricky. it's tricky tricky tricky tricky.
"that's 372 kushibos standing one on top of the other"
ReplyDeleteThis made me smile. I'm going to start using "kushibo" as a unit of measurement.
The Sanity Inspector wrote:
ReplyDeleteI don't know why the Indonesians aren't more cautious, as tectonically active as their home is.
Good point. But it is possible to cost-effectively make a few such super tall buildings, I think.
Wangkon wrote:
ReplyDeleteThat's hot.
Ha ha. You just gave me the kernel for an idea for a future post.
Shinbone wrote:
how difficult is it to design a modern skyscraper that isn't suggestively-shaped?
it's tricky. it's tricky tricky tricky tricky.
Long ago, perhaps before you were born, skyscrapers were built as sort of rectangular prisms. While they were tall and long, they lacked the roundish shape necessary to be a true phallic symbol.
Matt wrote:
ReplyDeleteThis made me smile. I'm going to start using "kushibo" as a unit of measurement.
Maybe I could start a career selling my body as a standard of measurement.
For length, one kushibo = 1.72 meters
For weight, one kushibo equals either 61.36 kg (135 lb) or 63.64 kg (140 lb), depending on whether one goes by my California driver license or my Hawaii state ID. According to my Korean driver license, I'm weightless.
As soon as I can get a pool with a proper set up, I'll determine the volume of one kushibo, but I'm guessing it might be similar to the 1 liter/kg mass of water.
And if that works out, I may determine how much hot air I can produce in order to determine the volume of a kushibo of gas. It's no doubt a high figure, representing many moles of monologue.
As far as skyscrapers go, I think the rendering of this building is as close to phallic as you can get in a building. Short of adding two spheric buildings at the base and/or a more bulbous (or blatant mushroom) top portion of the building...this is as close as you can get.
ReplyDeleteDubai is in Asian? Not! Asia countries is 4: Here No. 1 Best Country, Short-people country, Jjangkae people country and Dirty country under Jjangkae people country. People camel ride Asia country is no! Why this way say? Do you want to die?
ReplyDelete135 to 140 lbs???? Are you a chick or just Kim Jong Il-ish short?
ReplyDeleteEdward wrote:
ReplyDelete135 to 140 lbs???? Are you a chick or just Kim Jong Il-ish short?
I'm not a chick, nor do I pretend to be one.
Actually, the driver license weight is from when I was sixteen. I think now it's a little more, but I'm still slim. Not "slim" the Marmot's Hole commenter, just slim the adjective.