History keeps disproving predictions that the supertall skyscraper, as a developer’s building type, was destroyed when the two 110-story towers of New York City’s World Trade Center went down. Last year alone, 66 towers taller than 200 meters opened their doors, breaking the 2007 record of 48. Of these, eight are taller than 300 m, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which is the keeper of the tall-building flame. CTBUH predicts 97 more 200-m-plus high-rises will have ribbon-cuttings next year, including more than 20 taller than 300 m, which the group dubs “supertalls.”

“Immediately following the events of 9/11, many believed we had seen the end of tall buildings as a viable proposition for our cities moving forward,” says Antony Wood, executive director of the Chicago-based CTBUH. “But the unprecedented international boom in high-rise buildings since then shows that the predictions were starkly wrong.”