For work, you can nip to the offices upstairs - anywhere up to the 160th floor, in fact. Monday's ribbon-cutting, though, could hardly come at a more awkward time. Conceived at the height of local optimism about Dubai's place in the region and the world, this seemingly endless bean-stock tower, which holds an Armani Hotel on its lower floors with apartments and offices above, has flooded Dubai with a good deal more residential and commercial space than the market can possibly bear. It will dwarf the new 1,776 ft 1 World Trade Center, also known as "Freedom Tower", being built on Ground Zero in New York, and is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon. At about 2,600 feet high -- the official figure is still being kept secret by developer Emaar Properties -- and 160 stories, the tower, set back half a mile or so from Dubai's busy Sheikh Zayed Road , will officially take its place as the tallest building in the world.
– Six years in the making, the Burj Dubai skyscraper opens Monday with the United Arab Emirates' fortunes in flux and the boom times that launched the world's tallest building a distant memory. Designed by American Adrian Smith, the Burj Dubai—the name means simply "Dubai Tower"—is 2,683 feet and 160 stories tall, with a nightclub on the 143rd floor and residences as high as the 108th. Developer Emaar Properties says the project is sold out despite the recession but won't say who's bought in, citing confidentiality, the Telegraph reports. "As super-tall buildings go, the Burj Dubai is elegant," writes Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. "But the hyper-confident Dubai that Smith's tower was designed to mark and call global attention to is already dead."