However, the height is not the goal, according to its designers, British-Iraqi architecture firm AMBS. The Bride of the Gulf is actually a local nickname for the city. It is called The Bride of the Gulf, and it will be 230 storeys – 1,152 metres – high. “world’s tallest building” is following the world’s economic centre of gravity: now Dubai, with the Burj Khalifa due to be superseded by Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower in about 2019.
- Basra was once considered one of the most beautiful and cosmopolitan places in the Gulf – before Saddam Hussein punished its mostly Shia population, then the Iraq war further scarred it. It was also the supposed location of the Garden of Eden.
The project has a 590,000 sqm ‘horizontal’ at ground, 79,000 sqm ‘vertical’ on tower’s south façade. Total area, 669,000 sqm
Tower 1 – 241 floors / 964m high – 650,206sqm
Tower 2 – 181 floors / 724m high – 475,220sqm
Tower 3 – 121 floors / 484m high – 300,224sqm
Tower 4 – 61 floors / 244m high – 125,248sqm
The brief developed into four conjoined towers creating a more logical and stable structure with multiple access and escape routes via horizontal and vertical circulation.
