The Only Way Is Up

 

Since the phenomenal construction of the Great Pyramids in Ancient Egypt, perhaps even before, mankind has considered the soaring tower with the highest of reverence. Reverence, however, often comes hand in hand with obsession. Twelfth-century Gothic architecture is littered with rising rooves and soaring spires; it was a time when people were convinced that the taller something was, the closer it was to God. Height was equal to austerity and was even worked into fashion with the escalating peaks of the hennin headdress and immensely tall chotine shoes which rendered the wearer ‘nearer to Heaven’. Indeed towering cathedrals were built so that they might reach towards Heaven and allow worshippers to feel closer to God. Since then human race has attempted to climb further and further upwards; hoping one day to touch the sky. How terrifying the modern skyscraper would appear to those twelfth-century architects. What would they see, gazing upon the towering spire of the Burj Khalifa: a monument in veneration of God, or a brazen declaration of human importance?