Following the opening of the world's tallest building in Dubai earlier this year, this week sees the completion of yet another iconic piece of architecture in the United Arab Emirates. The Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi has an 18-degree slope, prompting the Guinness World Records to name it the "furthest leaning man-made tower." The leaning tower of Pisa, by comparison, tilts just 4 degrees. The 35-story structure, designed by the British architecture firm Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall, will hold office space and a 5-star Hyatt hotel. Clearly you can't build anything in the UAE "unless it has a decent superlative attached," says Sam Potter at Kipp Report. "Biggest, best, tallest, most expensive." Why does the media keep giving coverage to these "increasingly preposterous PR ploys?" Perhaps because of the rich "symbolic potential" implicit in its "queasy" tilt, says Michael Silverberg at Metropolis Magazine. It's the "perfect metaphor for the teetering global real-estate market." Watch a CNN report on Capital Gate here:
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