The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently published their annual study looking at all of the 200+ meter tall buildings completed over the last year.

143 were completed around the world. The all-time record was 147, which was in 2017. Last year, 18 “supertalls” were also completed. A supertall building is generally defined as having a height of 300m or more.

The tallest building completed in 2018 was China Zun in Beijing. Pictured above. It is 527.7m tall (to tip), but the occupied height is 513.5m. 

It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and looks like a Chinese finger trap. All iconic buildings deserve an endearing nickname, right?

Below are a few interesting charts from the report. The first is the total number of tall buildings over 200m from 1920 to 2019. At whatever point they chose in the 1920s, there were only 2. Things sure changed starting in the 1980s.

That exponential growth happens to coincide with tall building growth in Asia and in particular China. The next few charts show (1) the handover from North America to Asia; (2) completions per year (broken down by talls and supertalls); and (3) completions by China, I mean country, last year.

The full 2018 year in review report can be found here.

Image: CTBUH