Some Chicago architects watched with pride as the world’s tallest building opened in Dubai today.
When the Burj Dubai opened amid fireworks today, engineers and architects in Chicago gathered around a TV and computer screens to watch. They’re some of the people at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill who helped design the building.
The senior structural engineer, James Pawlikowski, says he was awestruck.
PAWLIKOWSKI: It really is one of these once-in-a-career-type buildings. It’s going to be some time before a project like this comes along again -- I hope another one will come to us sooner rather than later. But just personally it’s been so nice to be able to work on something like this and learn as much as I have learned and be able to say that I have contributed.
He expects it will take a while to top it - it’s about 27-hundred and 17 feet tall. That’s more than a thousand feet taller than the next highest building.
It was renamed the Burj Khalifa after the president of the United Arab Emirates.