Gerhard Matzig on skyscrapers in Europe

Gerhard Matzig fears that Europe's reservations about skyscrapers could jeopardise the future urban development of its cities. According to UN studies, by the year 2035 two-thirds of the world's population will live in constantly growing – vertically as well as horizontally – cities. "Europe, too, needs to start thinking about how its cities can expand upwards – perhaps even more than all other continents, and for environmental reasons if nothing else. Increasingly scarce energy resources will soon deprive us of the mobility we have taken for granted and erase the separation between suburbia and the inner city. The result will be urban concentration. And that inevitably entails the construction of taller buildings… If Europe doesn't want to end up as a museum for the Asian world but at the same time wants to preserve its unusually diverse urban heritage in a dynamic way, it must address the issue of height, albeit without resorting to the construction of ecologically and economically unviable super skyscrapers – but nonetheless with an awareness of the potential of the vertical as living space."

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