01 August 08

Top Ten

Top 10

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TORRE VARESINE 1
MILAN
This skyscraper is the perfect spot from which to watch the Versace clan arrive in a fleet of black limos during fashion week. The sleek, 50-storey beauty is expected to top out at 175m when it is completed next year.

TORRE CAJA
MADRID
Almost finished and mere centimetres taller than the city’s Crystal Tower, Torre Caja Madrid stands at 250m, and is the tallest building in Spain. It was designed by Norman Foster and purchased by banking giant Caja Madrid for €815 million.

PALACE OF CULTURE AND SCIENCE
WARSAW
Looking a bit like part of the Empire State Building, Poland’s tallest edifice (237m) was a gift from Stalin. For years, the locals hated it, and would often chortle that the best views of Warsaw were from the building itself, as that was the only place you couldn’t see it!

COMMERZBANK TOWER
FRANKFURT
This was the tallest building in Europe until 2005, when Moscow trumped it with the grandiose, 264m-high Triumph Palace. Still, at 258m, Commerzbank is no slouch. It’s nestled in a “mini-Manhattan”, with more than 1 million square feet of office space. If you can climb that spire at the top you’ll be even higher, at about 300m.

TOUR DE BRETAGNE
NANTES
This picturesque French city has beautiful chateaux, a cathedral and the 144m Tour. Yet sadly, the last we’d heard they’d closed its viewing platform!

TOUR DU CRÉDIT LYONNAIS
LYON
Known locally as “Le Crayon” (165m), this rust-coloured horizon blocker is home to some of the highest hotel rooms this side of New York. There’s a nice bar up

TOUR DU MIDI
BRUSSELS
Brilliantly boring, Belgium’s tallest building is owned by the pensions administration. It’s worth a peep if you’re near the train station, mainly because it looks like a 150m-tall Rubik’s

HOTEL ARTS
BARCELONA
If you’re looking for an upmarket room with a view, at 154m this Ritz-Carlton-owned beauty is hard to beat. Stare across the Med one side, and across the city and the mountains on the other. Awesome.

TOUR MONTPARNASSE
PARIS
It may be 324m tall, but you could hardly pass off the Eiffel Tower as a skyscraper. So Paris makes do with the Tour Montparnasse, a simple, shiny stack of offices standing at 210m that you can go right to the top of.

KAKNÄSTORNET
STOCKHOLM
Not so much a skyscraper as “bloody big TV tower” (left), this is the one on our list where you can see the most Ikeas (if you have a telescope). It’s 155m tall, and you can have a meal up there, too.