Taipei 101

On 1 January 2005 the world's tallest skyscraper was inaugurated, a 508-metre tower of glass and steel designed by the Taiwanese architect C.Y. Lee. It is Taipei 101, named after the number of floors that make up the building. A piece of Italy also contributed to the record: Taipei 101 is clad in light-green glass and 90,000 tonnes of steel supplied by the Italian group Permasteelisa of Conegliano Veneto (Treviso). Its 101 floors house offices and restaurants, but above all shops, mostly luxury ones. On the top floor, open to visitors, you can admire the view over the city. So Taipei gains a new tourist attraction! With its 101 floors, equal to a height of 508 metres, Taipei 101 takes the record from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (452 metres), becoming the tallest building in the world. But it is not the only supremacy.

In fact the skyscraper also wins the one for the fastest lift, with a speed of 60.48 km/h. Finally, perhaps the most important of the records, is the one concerning safety, from fire safety to earthquake risk. In this regard a sophisticated damping system was built, its purpose being to stabilise the oscillations caused by possible seismic movements of the earth's crust. It consists of a 600-tonne iron ball suspended from eight cables. This spherical mass can also be visited.