The European Union has virtually no skyscrapers except the newly built 'The Shard' in London. There are also a series of newly-built state-funded skyscrapers in Moscow.
On the other hand if you look at Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo you will see the whole skyline full of skyscrapers. Why is it so?
South East Asia (SEA) isn't totally full of sky-scrapers-- just the wealthy cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, or Shen Zhen. What all these cities have in common is fast, recent growth and limited space. England or France, or many other European states have been developing for hundreds of years. 200 years ago, there was no technology for sky scrapers; so, none were built. Today, SEA has many sky scrapers because there is a near future lack of space, and because sky scrapers are now possible to build.
Technically, Tokyo, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taipei, are NOT in South East Asia.
They are in Asia, which hosts 60% of the world's current human population.
Having 60% of the world's population seems like a valid reason to have a good proportion of the skyscrapers.
That being said, the small number of skyscrapers in Europe can not be denied. In many European cities (like Paris), construction of skyscrapers is forbidden or limited to particular places in the city periphery, in an attempt to preserve landscape.
Wikipedia says the Tour Montparnasse has been "often criticised for being out of place in Paris's urban landscape and, as a result, two years after its completion, the construction of skyscrapers in the city centre was banned."
Other places with similar rules, from the comments:
To expand on NewAlexandria's answer:
Europe has a well developed planning and zoning regime. Obtaining planning approval for a building that is not in keeping with the existing stock is a long process that will usually meet with either failure or limitations on the design/ profile.
On of the reasons the shard is the shape it is was to prevent existing landmarks being overshadowed/ obscured on the skyline.
In Asia money talks.
In Germany employees have the right to daylight at their workplace. This is not easy in a skyscraper, which often has a huge core of rooms without any daylight. There might be some information in DIN EN 12464-1 Licht und Beleuchtung – Beleuchtung von Arbeitsstätten – Teil 1: Arbeitsstätten in Innenräume
If I want to occupy space in a major city I have three choices.
In Europe option 1 is considerably more expensive because (i) the cities are already developed and so it is necessary to find or create brownfield space of sufficient size for the construction project, and (ii) planning laws are often more restrictive than in Asia/N. America. This naturally compels people do do more of 2 and 3.
By contrast, many of the great skyscraper cities such as New York, Tokyo, and Shanghai only commenced there phase of rapid development whilst/after skyscraper construction techniques had been introduced. As such, builders in those places were faced with a relative abundance of un(der)-developed space on which to build. Also, many of the world's biggest skyscraper cities (New york, Tokyo, Hong Kong) are naturally bounded (e.g. by the shores of Manhattan Island) which limits the possibility of choosing option 3.
More recently, cities like London have seen a renewed interest in the construction of tall buildings. This has come about as a consequence of a ~2000-2007 property boom that has made land space more expensive. As land prices increase, option 1 from the list becomes more attractive relative to the others because a skysraper creates more space per unit of land occupied.
Pragmatically, because:
Legally in England, there is the law of "Right to Light" In short this means that existing buildings have an expectation that their natural light will be preserved by later developmnts, ie putting up a skyscraper next to my house would be a criminal act.
There are a couple of factors here I haven't seen mentioned:
Skyscrapers are generally office buildings, often owned by a single company. Asian skyscrapers often mean to represent economical success of a company.
Buildings in countries like Japan are generally built for short term, couple of decades, no more. Also, centralized policy on architecture is rather weak. If you have a land somewhere, you can build there prety much whatever you want, and you do it every 30-40 years, so naturally many building will be ultramodern. European countries have strict regulations on what you can built, and major architectural projects esp in downtown are not one company shows.
Many of the said cities are dynamically growing both in economy and in population. HKG, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo are big cities with much more money to spend and much more need for office space and sometimes living spaces. Tokyo itself has larger population than half of the EU countries, and land prices rivaling London's. Shanghai has far bigger economic growth than anything in Europe in the last couple of decades.
Generally skyscrapers are build near the centre of the city. In many cities, the centre is merely historical and since some time, people prefer to conserve historical buildings. In Europe, if the city centres' buildings survived the history, they are preserved and there is not much space for anything else. So in Europe, skyscrapers are sometimes outside the actual centre (Paris, Prague...) - and so just few of them as they are not enough efficient too far from the centre. But e.g. in cities heavily damaged in WWII, skyscrapers are often also in the centre (often limited by some regulations): London, Berlin, Warsaw... as there was plenty of space for new development in/near the core of the city.
There is no general answer; each reason has its own answer.
Japan has a high population density and limited arable land, so the evolution of a mega-city like Tokyo with skyscrapers is a technical solution to a national challenge.
Singapore and Hong Kong have a limited amount of land; the only option for increasing space was to grow up.
China is undergoing urbanization right now; housing must be built for all the rural residents who are migrating to the cities. China also has central planning, and for several reasons, favors the construction of large, densely populated cities instead of suburban sprawl. It is interesting to travel from Beijing out of the city for example, just a moment passes and there are only farms and villages.
For Taipei and Kuala Lumpur, I am not so familiar with the real estate dynamics.
I think in Europe - Germany, for example - the growth of small towns was more prevalent when urbanization occurred. I don't know much about European Urbanization plans, but I think the distribution of political control was such that smaller cities were favored over large cities.
I agree with TylerDurden, but just to elaborate a little on the politics of the matter.
One, most European countries are vibrant democracies. Thus, nimby-ists, sentimentalists, incumbent property owners, environmentalists, and the like have greater opportunity to veto any new developments. So, like TylerDurden says, these guys don't really have much of a say.
Two, Europe has a much greater share of nimby-ists, sentimentalists, incumbent property owners, environmentalists, and the like.
So for example, even if China were a vibrant democracy, there are far fewer sentimentalists who would protest against the construction of a skyscraper next to say the Forbidden Palace. Also, for obvious reasons, there are also far fewer incumbent property owners who have an interest in blocking the increase in the supply of office/housing space.
Three, even compared to the US, Europe has a much stronger anti-capitalist/sentimentalist spirit. And in Asia the pro-capitalist/pragmatist spirit is probably even stronger than in the US. If a tall building means everyone will be richer, people in Asia will support it, while Europeans will think of all sorts of reasons to oppose it.
Based on the above arguments, it is perhaps not surprising that the European city with the most skyscrapers is Moscow (31). (Wikipedia) Second is Istanbul (28).
A distant third is Paris (18) and fourth is London (15) where property prices are ridiculously high and, if run by Chinese/Singaporean technocrats or HK free-marketeers, would have far more skyscrapers.
Just to correct a couple of mistakes:
(1) East Asia doesn't represent 60% of the world's population, more like 20%...
(2) It's the East Asia where most skyscrapers are located... OR MORE PRECISELY, ONLY ONE COUNTRY ON PLANET EARTH MATTERED: CHINA. THERE'RE 7,000+ BUILDINGS IN CHINA THAT ARE TALLER THAN 100 METERS, TWICE AS MUCH AS THE REST OF WORLD COMBINED... UNITED STATES, A DISTANT SECOND, HAS ONLY 1717 SKYSCRAPERS... JAPAN AT 3RD PLACE, HAS ONLY 800...\
(3) Europe doesn't have a skyscraper culture. United States was a bold brand new capitalist state back in the 20th century, now it's China, that is extremely bold and liberal (in terms of capitalism), I'm not saying China is a free democratic country, it's not, it's authoritarian, like Singapore, BUT, IT'S EXTREMELY LIBERAL CAPITALIST.
Agreeing or at least taking into consideration everything said here before me, I would like to give my answer to the question.
First, have you ever been impressed by the skyscraper? I suppose you did, like everybody else. This is because the thing is really impressive, it is huge, it goes to heaven, it has it's sort of beauty, technologically advanced beauty. From outside. But let us take a look inside the skyscraper, the first few stories are usually used to impress on purpose, interiors are extensively decorated in a modern way, luxury shops and ads are installed, most recognized brands are invited to put their world renowned logos everywhere.
Do we have an example of this kind of an impressive building in the past centuries? Does it remaind you something from the past? The history of architecture knows such example. This temple.
Everywhere, in Rome, India, Persia, Tibet, Russia, Greece, France or Germany, the king will build a temple when he wants to strengthen his influence in the area. Especially in the freshly conquered, annexed, colonized or by other means possessed territory, where current architecture is centuries behind what the king could build with his power, money and people.
The temple will dominate the lesser buildings and will convey the populist messages to both, the locals who will think the king is come not to war and rob but unite people under right and mighty God, as well as to king's settlers who will be attracted by the building and all associated infrastructure, culture and economy.
The view on skyscrapers as tall buildings is not complete, the skyscraper is a tall building that was made impressive on purpose. For instance Empire State Building is surrounded by other very high buildings, but you may think they are just tall buildings whereas ESB was definetly build and named to impress.
In colonies such as HK or Singapore the skyscraper will attract both local population and metropolian settlers. Locals will love to move in and learn English to be closer to civilized world that for them emotionally is a "skyscraper world" with technology, knowledge, power and gold. And settlers will love to come as they will feel in the West while being far from home. British colonizers noticed that it is much easier to attract settlers, especially noble and wealthy if you create a very dense town, this will help preserve a metropolitan culture as well as opposed to dissolving in local population.
Of course a decision to build impressive skyscrapers in the colony will not be made by public democratic procedures. Instead it will be made in private clubs in comfortable chairs surrounded by cigar smoke and expensive wine on the tables. Of course both press, the one oriented at metropolian settlers and the one oriented at native settlers (say Chinese in HK) will be told other things about land value, great symbol of our city success, a better place to work and trade for us all. Of course all those messagess will be true as well.
In Russia and China the governments are frustrated by the fact that local popularion sees the West as the more attractive place than the someone's own country, that is why Chinese government will support building impressive buildings. Someone mentioned 7000 skyscrapers build in China. Of course all economical reasons apply, and they have been discussed before me.
Russia did not built a single skyscraper for about twenty years, although the attempts to build impressive structures in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg were made all the time, but each time when the plan was made public, the western press will start the campaign against it, usually the arguments were historical city view, money comes from bad oligarchs, local people will oppose. And they will oppose, few days later when the same arguments will spread in local press. And photos of few protesters will circulate in Western press another few days later, and few other days later they will circulate in local press. I talk about it in such detail to support my claim that skyscrapers are built or not built not from solely natural economical reasons but on purpose. The purpose is populism, who has the right to build temples he is the King. In recent years Russian president Putin used his presidential power to remove the barrier and skyscrapers are finally being built in Moscow.
Not only empire builders and colony establishers would want to build impressive buildings, corporations will want to impress their higher staff, partners and customers. But they have limited power and will only build where allowed by city planners.
This is a list of all high-rise buildings (100m) in Europe (including the Asian part of Russia and Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia)
Skyscrapercity - Number of 100m skyscrapers in Europe by country (complete, T / O, U / C)
High-rise buildings 100m in Europe
complete = 947 topped out = 85 under construction = 262
Complete list of all skyscraper (150m +) in Europe (complete, T/O, U/C)
150m+ (complete,T/O) = 199 200m+ (complete,T/O) = 50 300m+ (complete,T/O) = 6
In my opinion, three factors creating the skyscraper.
1.Steel. The skyscraper needed the steel as the skeleton to uphold the whole weight of the building, instead of the outer wall to support the weight. 2.Elevator. Transport the people to the upper stairs. 3. Bond, this factor which can be debated. Before you start to construct the skyscraper, you need to fund enough money for the whole project. 4. Heritage, because European cities have the heritage, it would be difficult to reform the city like America.
It is because European cities have building height restrictions. For example, London has a 1000-foot absolute restriction and it is very rare for any building over 250 feet high to be permitted. Paris has similar laws that prevent the construction of any building over about 200 feet (12 stories).
The reasons given for these restrictions are given out as to "preserve historic skylines" and "improve the quality of life of workers". However, these reasons are just nonsense, because you can find the same restrictions in bombed out cities like Munich that have no longer have a "historic" skyline.
In all probability, it is probably just nimbi-ism ("not in my backyard"). Skyscrapers benefit the builder and tenants, but noone else, except indirectly. In the socialist mentality current in Europe such "selfish" business practices are not tolerated, especially by labor parties.
Basically, it is a result of the socialist/"worker"-oriented politics prevalent in Europe. In Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, the rules are made by small groups of elites and workers do not have much influence over zoning policies.
Just as additional proof of my answer read dorf's answer above. What he says is a completely accurate picture of the European view: workers have a "right to daylight" according to him. That is the mentality that prevents skyscrapers from being built in the middle of big cities in Europe.
