The World’s Most Inclined Building
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the most famous leaning or inclined building in the world, but its degree of leaning pales in comparison to a modern building that intentionally inclines more than any other free-standing building in the world.
The building is the 35-story Capital Gate building located in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Construction began in 2007 and was finished in 2011. The building has an incline of 18 degrees west from the bottom to the top, making it the tallest inclined building in the world. By comparison, the previous record holder of most inclined building, the Leaning Tower of Suurhusen in northwestern Germany, has an incline of 5.19 degrees, and the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa leans at 3.97 degrees.
The Capital Gate cost $231 million (US) to construct and is a mixed-use building with office and retail space, and the upper floors house the Hyatt Capital Gate hotel. The building has a central core that leans in the opposite direction to the inclination at the base and then straightens with the tower’s height. Four hundred ninety piles were drilled 98 feet (30 meters) into the ground to counter the effects from wind, gravitational, and seismic forces because of…
