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Tall Buildings

Noah talks to architect Cesar Pelli about the world's tallest buildings. Pelli designed what is currently the world's tallest: the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. Those will soon be dwarfed by a tower in Shanghai, China. And Donald Trump has plans for a still-taller skyscraper in lower Manhattan. Pelli's own design for a 2,000-foot tall building in Chicago has remained un-built since it was unveiled in 1989. Pelli says there are a lot of hurdles for skyscrapers to overcome before completion. He says with extremely tall buildings, the architect must view the process as adding a story at the BOTTOM, not the top -- to account for all the services, wires, elevators, and so forth that go into making a building work.

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