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David Nicholson-Cole is and assistant professor in Architecture at the University of Nottingham. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation , a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation.

From the legendary Tower of Babel to the iconic Burj Khalifa, humans have always aspired to build to ever greater heights. Over the centuries, we have constructed towering edifices to celebrate our culture, promote our cities -- or simply to show off.

Historically, tall structures were the preserve of great rulers, religions and empires. For instance, the Great Pyramids of Giza -- built to house the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu -- once towered over 145 meters high.

Completed in 2015, Asia's tallest building surpasses the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai's Pudong district. Estimated to cost $2.4 billion, its completion marked the end of a project in the financial district stretching back to 1993. Height: 632m (2073ft) Floors: 128 Architect: Jun Xia, Gensler Credit: Gensler

It was the tallest man-made structure for nearly 4,000 years, before being overtaken by the 160-meter-tall Lincoln Cathedral in the 14th century. Other edifices, such as Tibet's Potala Palac e (the traditional home of the Dalai Lama), or the monasteries of Athos were constructed atop mountains or rocky outcrops, to bring them even closer to the heavens.

Yet these grand historical efforts are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the 20th and 21st centuries. London's Shard looms at 310 meters tall at its fractured tip -- but it's made to look small by the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa , which stands at more than 828 meters. And both these behemoths will be left in the shadows by the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Originally planned by architect Adrian Smith to reach 1,600 meters, the tower is now likely to reach one kilometer high, once it's completed in 2020.

So how did we make this great leap upwards?

Currently world's tallest building, since it was completed in 2010, is the Burj Khalifa. It stands a massive 198 meters (650 feet) above its nearest competitor. Height: 828m (2717ft) Floors: 163 Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Credit: istockphoto

Ingredients for success

We can trace our answer back to the 1880s, when the first generation of skyscrapers appeared in Chicago and New York. The booming insurance businesses of the mid-19th century were among the first enterprises to exploit the technological advancements, which made tall buildings possible.

Constructed in the aftermath of the great fire of 1871, Chicago's Home Insurance building -- completed in 1884 by William Le Baron Jenney -- is widely considered to be the first tall building of the industrial era, at 12 stories high.

Architects Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler first coined the term "tall office building" in 1896, drawing on the architectural precedent of Italy's Renaissance palazzi. His definition denoted that the first two stories are given over to the entrance way and retail activity, with a service basement below, repeated stories above and a cornice or attic story to finish the building at the top. Vertical ducts unite the building with power, heat and circulation. This specification still holds good today.

432 Park Avenue, the tallest all-residential tower in the western hemisphere, opened its doors in December 2015, recently became the hundredth supertall building in the world. Height: 425.5m (1396ft) Floors: 85 Architect: Rafael Vinoly, SLCE Architects, LLP Credit: Courtesy CIM Group

The American technological revolution of 1880 to 1890 saw a burst of creativity that produced a wave of new inventions that helped architects to build higher than ever before: Bessemer steel, formed into I-sections in the new rolling mills enabled taller and more flexible frame design than the cast iron of the previous era; the newly patented sprinkler head allowed buildings to escape the strict, 23-meter height limit, which was imposed to control the risk of fire; and the patenting of AC electricity allowed elevators to be electrically powered and rise to ten or more stories.





































1 / 19 – Wooden skyscrapers This floating wooden pavilion is the Pavillion of Reflections in Zurich. It was revealed as part of Manifesta, an annual contemporary art biennial. Credit: Wolfgang Traeger

Early tall buildings contained offices. The typewriter, telephone and US universal postal system also appeared in this decade, and they revolutionized office work and enabled administration to be concentrated in individual highrise buildings within a city's business district.

Situated close to the Grand Mosque of the holy city of Mecca, the tower complex is one part of the $15 billion King Abdulaziz Endowment Project, seeking to modernize Mecca and accommodate the ever-growing number of pilgrims. Height: 601m (1972ft) Floors: 120 Architect: Dar Al-Handasah Architects Credit: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Changes in urban life also encouraged the switch to taller, higher-density facilities. Street trams, subways and elevated rail links provided the means to deliver hundreds of workers to a single urban location, decades before the European motor car appeared on American streets and reshaped urban form away from the city grid.

Apart from a few high rise mansion blocks around Central Park, New York, the terraced house reigned supreme in the crowded cities of the pre motor car age, such as Paris, London, and Manhattan, and evolved to nine stories in ultra dense Hong Kong.

Known as the "Freedom Tower," One World Trade Center stands on part of the site previously occupied by the Twin Towers. It's the highest building in the western hemisphere, and cost $3.9 billion according to Forbes. Height: 541.3m (1776 ft) Floors: 94 Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Credit: STAN HONDA/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Early office towers filled their city blocks entirely, with buildings enclosing a large light and air-well, as an squared U, O or H shape. This permitted natural light and ventilation within the building, but didn't provide any public spaces. Chicago imposed a height limit of 40 meters in 1893, but New York raced ahead with large and tall blocks. Many of these, such as the Singer, Woolworth, MetLife and Chrysler buildings, tapered off with "campanile" towers, battling to be tallest in the world.

The first skyscraper to break the half-kilometer mark, the world's tallest building between March 2004 and March 2010 is also one of the greenest -- certified LEED platinum in 2011. Designed to withstand the elements, including typhoons, earthquakes and 216 km/h winds, Taipei 101 utilizes a 660-tonne mass damper ball suspended from the 92nd floor, which sways to offset the movement of the building. Height: 508m (1667ft) Floors: 101 Architect: C.Y. Lee & Partners Credit: Taiwan Tourism

Second-generation giants

In 1915, following the completion of the 40-story Equitable building on Broadway, there was such alarm at the darkening streets that New York introduced "zoning laws" that forced new buildings to step ziggurat-like as they rose, in order to bring daylight down to street level.

The joint eighth highest completed skyscraper is still the tallest twin towers in the world. Finished in 1996 and inaugurated in 1999, it's been the site of numerous hair-raising stunts. Felix Baumgartner set a then-BASE jump world record in 1999 by jumping off a window cleaning crane, and in 2009 Frenchman Alain Robert, known as "Spiderman," freeclimbed to the top of Tower Two without safety equipment -- and did so in under two hours. Height: 451.9m (1483ft) Floors: 88 Architect: Cesar Pelli Credit: Goh Seng Chong/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This meant that while the base still filled the city block, the rest of the tower would rise centrally, stepping back every few stories, and it forced the service core to the building's center, leading to the loss of the light well and making mechanical ventilation and artificial lighting essential for human habitation. This was a radical change in the shape of tall buildings, and the second generation of skyscrapers.

As architectural historian Carol Willis would have it, "form follows finance": the developers of early 20th century high rise office blocks would work out how to maximize the amount of usable floor-space in a city site, before asking an architect to put a wall around it. Such vast wall surfaces with conventional windows invited patterns of geometric decoration, and the ziggurat style came to be the most recognizable architectural symbol of the Art Deco movement.

Completed in March 2016, the Lotte World Tower is Seoul's first supertall skyscraper, and is currently the sixth tallest building in the world. Height: 556 meters (1824 feet) Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates Credit: Teddy Cross

The mania for profit-driven tall development got out of hand in the late 1920s, however, and culminated in 1931 with the Chrysler and the Empire State buildings. The oversupply of office buildings, the depression of the 1930s and World War II brought an end to the Art Deco boom. There were no more skyscrapers until the 1950s, when the post-war era summoned forth a third generation: the International Style, the buildings of darkened glass and steel-framed boxes, with air conditioning and plaza fronts that we see in so many of the world's cities today.