摘要：
迪拜所有的阿联酋航空公司表示，它将修建一座世界上最高的旅馆，以容纳海湾国家阿联酋日益增长的观光客。
Dubai-owned airline Emirates said it would
build one of the world's tallest hotels to cater for growing
numbers of tourists to the Gulf Arab emirate.
迪拜所有的阿联酋航空公司表示，它将修建一座世界上最高的旅馆，以容纳海湾国家阿联酋日益增长的观光客。
竣工后的“迪拜塔”将成为世界上最高的建筑，连553米高的多伦多电视塔和它一比都会变成“小矮人”，上海和纽约正在筹划中的超高层建筑也将相形见绌。
这座将居住和购物集于一身的综合性大厦至少将有700米高，内有1000套豪华公寓。为修建这座旅馆共调用了大约4000名工人和100台起重机。
大楼的确切高度目前仍然保密，一方面是因为投资方担心竞争对手将这个“最高独立建筑物”的名头抢走，另外，修筑更高楼层的技术也许到了2008年就已成熟。
来自迪拜的建筑师说，他们希望迪拜塔至少有800米高，光是修建这座塔就至少耗资10亿美元，还不包括修筑大型购物中心、湖泊和稍矮的塔楼群的费用。
“这一设计将触及技术所能达到的颠峰，在此之前没有一座建筑能修那么高。人们不得不开发能适应这种高度的新型电梯。”迪拜塔的所有者埃马公司的销售经理纳曼·阿塔拉在参观该建筑工地时对记者说。
迪拜塔是由美国的一家顾问公司设计的，基座周围采用了富有伊斯兰建筑风格的几何图形——六瓣的沙漠之花。
这些设计方案展示了一种具有挑战性的单式结构，由联为一体的管状多塔组成，具有太空时代风格的外形。这种形象曾在70年代的现代摇滚乐队中常见的具有新世纪音乐风格的专辑封面上出现过。
迪拜，这个富产石油的阿联酋成员国2004年间接待了超过540万名游客，比2003年上涨了9%，到本世纪第10年，预计游客数字将增长三倍。
Dubai-owned airline
Emirates said it would build one of the world's tallest hotels to
cater for growing numbers of tourists to the Gulf Arab emirate.
The Dubai Tower will be
the tallest building in the world when finished. It would dwarf
the 553m CN Tower in Toronto and planned high-rises in Shanghai
and New York.
Some 4000 workers and 100
cranes have gathered to build the hotel, residential and shopping
complex of at least 700m which will include over 1000 luxury
apartments.
The exact height is being
kept a secret, partly for fear of rival bids to be the tallest
free-standing building, and because by 2008 it might be
technologically possible to go even higher.
Dubai-based architects
say they expect Dubai Tower to hit at least 800m. The tower alone
would cost at least $1 billion to construct, excluding the complex
malls, lakes and smaller tower blocs.
"The design has
pushed the limits of what technology can achieve, no one has gone
that high before. You have to invent new elevators that can
sustain such heights," Naaman Atallah, sales manager for its
owner Emaar, told journalists on a tour of the site.
Designed by a US-based
consultancy, the tower employs the geometric patterns of Islamic
architecture around a base in the form of a six-petalled desert
flower.
The plans show an
ambitious single structure comprising conjoined tube-shaped towers
with the kind of space-age look seen in the New Age album covers
of 70s progressive rock bands.
Dubai -- part of the
oil-rich United Arab Emirates -- received more than 5.4 million
visitors in 2004, up nine percent from 2003, and that the number
was expected to grow three times by the end of the decade.
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