Dream of Tower

Photo courtesy DAC

The tower reaches into the sky and expresses our eternal endeavour to show what we can jointly accomplish, and what we believe in. From Antiquity to the current soaring growth in Asian cities, the elements heaven, city and tower have played a pivotal role in creating identity, culture and growth - a common vision for our daily lives. A vision that tells us who we are and gives us identity - gives us a name. In Antiquity, a common vision, identity and name should ensure unity of the family, the tribe and the state. Today, cohesion of multicultural urban regions and international companies is achieved by building brands. We "brandbuild" and name our worlds by erecting skyscrapers as a symbol of our common aspirations./Kent Martinussen, CEO, Danish Architecture Center

Photo courtesy DAC

The exhibition is organised around three themes; a historic overview of the dreams and visions, an emotional experience of the global city skyline, and the physical experience of being inside a skyscraper.

The first exhibition room focuses on man's perpetual vision of building upwards - from the Tower of Babel to Norman Foster's design for the Millennium Tower - on buildings that represent the dream of reaching the sky, building the best and the tallest.


Photo courtesy DAC

Photo courtesy DAC

Photo courtesy DAC

In the center of the room visitors can see a model of the spectacular Tatlin Tower, which was the Soviet Union's suggestion for a skyscraper at the World Exhibition in 1919.


Photo: arcspace

From New York and Chicago to the myriad of new skylines that spring up like mushrooms in Asia, the second exhibition room shows the high-rise buildings in their proper surroundings - the city. All the models are the same scale (1:200) giving visitors a real sense of their proportions.


Photo: arcspace

Photo: arcspace

A row of "View machines" give 360 degree views over the metropoles of the world.


Photo: arcspace

The last exhibition room focuses on engineering and building technologies focusing on the most important preconditions for high-rise buildings; the invention on the lift, eartquake safety, energy consumption, interior climate etc.

You learn curious details and facts; like the Empire State Building in New York uses 3,194.547 light bulbs and St. Mary's Axe in London can manage vertical transportation of 378 people at the same time.


Photo: arcspace

Visitors can also experience the view towards Copenhagen from Santiago Calatrava's "Turning Torso" and follow the construction in the program Extreme Engineering from Discovery Channel.


Photo: arcspace

Let's build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth./Genesis, Chapter 11
The City of Babel, The Old Testament