Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building Unveiled.

Despite the current economic woes of Dubai, last night saw the official opening of the just renamed Burj Dubai, the Burj Khalifa Dubai. The rename is out of respect to the Abu Dahbi ruler Sheik Khalifa who recently kicked in a lazy US $10b to Dubai to help ease it’s recent debt issues.

The true height of the metal and glass structure has been a closely guarded secret since construction began over 6 years ago. It has been announced at just over 880m tall. It has taken US$1.3b and 12,000 workers to finally bring to fruition and is aimed to once again signal Dubai’s and the Arab world’s image of a dessert oasis and economic powerhouse.

An interesting point is that since the days of the Empire State building in New York, World’s Tallest Buildings have generally signaled an upcoming financial crisis, such as the Great depression, all the way up to the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia which ushered in the Asia Financial Crisis to the Burj which has come off the back of the GFC and now Dubai’s credit crunch.

The Burj, which means Tower in Arabic places the Arab world as once again the land of the World’s tallest human structure a title is hasn’t had since the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.