The tallest building in Egypt will once again be a kind of pyramid. Rising 650 feet above its surroundings, the gleaming pyramid-shaped skyscraper planned for Cairo will loom nearly 200 feet above the Great Pyramid of Giza, which spent 3,800 years as the world's tallest man-made structure (until the English built the Lincoln Cathedral in the 14th century). The proposed 49-story tower looks like a mash-up of San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid skyscraper and King Tut's golden sarcophagus.
Of course, architects around the world have long been inspired by the monumental architecture of the ancient pharaohs. From I. M. Pei's pyramids for the Louvre and the glassy Muttart Conservatory in Canada, to a modernist concrete pyramid built to celebrate Senegalese independence and Bjarke Ingels' tetrahedron in New York, structures with four sloping slides and a rectangular base have been a popular design choice for several millennia. Until now, however, most of those buildings have been just several stories tall, with a few exceptions, like the Transamerica Pyramid skyscraper.
Egypt's proposed Zayed Crystal Spark zone, which includes the pyramid tower, is part of an 8.5-million-square-foot development project in Cairo, and will be surrounded by water and greenery, but sadly no sphinxes.
· Fit for a Pharaoh: Egypt Plans Its First New Pyramid in 4,500 years [Architizer]
· All Rendering Reveals posts [Curbed National]