The Turning Torso was designed by world famous Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava (some of whose work we’ve featured in the past), and represents part of a growing trend for elaborately warped and twisted “torqued towers“.

In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park the new M.H. De Young Museum was completed in October 2005 – replacing the original building that had been damaged in an earthquake. To prevent damage to the new building, it can move almost a metre thanks to a system of sliding plates and fluid dampers. It’s also entirely clad in copper, which will eventually oxidize, taking on a green colour reflective of the surrounding vegetation.

From many places around the park, the most striking feature of the building is the 44 metre Hamon Tower, the impressive twist of which can be clearly seen from both an aerial and ground-level point of view.

Tower designers aren’t just rotating their towers either – although still under construction in Google’s images, the China Central Television Headquarters building was completed in December 2008, and its design almost defies belief. Especially when you consider that this area is also prone to earthquakes!

Technically the CCTV building isn’t a traditional tower, but rather a “continuous loop of six horizontal and vertical sections covering 381,000 square metres of floor space”. This is probably best summed up by the building’s local nickname – “Big Shorts”.

There are several other torqued towers around the world that are either in planning, or already under construction. However I wonder how many of them will be delayed or cancelled due to the current economic climate?

• 1 World Trade Center, New York City, (formerly known as the Freedom Tower), will have a roof set at 45° from the bottom.
• The Infinity Tower, Dubai, will feature a 90° twist like the Turning Torso, but will be nearly twice the height.
• The Chicago Spire, Chicago, also designed by Santiago Calatrava, will be 160 metres taller than the Sears Tower.
• The Burj al-Taqa, Dubai, will feature a twisted hyperboloid design, and will generate all its own energy.

Finally, check out the totally insane Signature Towers and equally ludicrous Dubai Towers Dubai which are both planned for construction in Dubai.

See the amazing skyscraperpage.com for more jaw dropping future skyscrapers.

Thanks to stephan and Vectoor.

Locations: California, China, Sweden / Categories: Buildings, Shadows, Towers

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Today about 3km of the Northern loop are currently in use¹, but around 7km will be ready by next year. As well as the track itself, Google’s images let us see the absolutely massive wind turbines that form part of the operator’s vision to be the most environmentally friendly racing facility of its type in the world.

Although it’s far from complete at this stage, these images do also let us begin to see the profile of the Southern Loop, which will apparently be ready for “tarmac installation” next year, but won’t be ready for racing until 2012. As this diagram demonstrates, when finished the two loops will be joined, allowing drivers to race around one complete circuit totalling 28km.²

The land on which the track is being built belongs to a company called Nordkalk, and as the imagery makes quite obvious, it used to be a large limestone quarry. It looks like production of limestone is still in full flow here, judging by the activity going on at the nearby lake, and in fact much of the crushed stone needed for building the circuit was provided by the mining operation.

Gotland Ring does have a Wikipedia page, but it currently reads like a badly translated press release. Perhaps a kindly Swede could do a better job of translating the key points from the official site?

Locations: Sweden / Categories: Islands, Other Vehicles, Stadiums and Sport, Structures

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The yellow floating crane to the northwest took part in the dismantling process, which you can see from the ground in these numerous photos. You can also see the Kockums crane at its new South Korean home in this photo.

And while we’re on a roll with the big cranes scroll a few screens east for the largest floating crane in the world.

Many thanks to Lars Persson & Rickard Jensen

Locations: Sweden / Categories: Structures

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According to what I’ve read, the island is also a biological experiment to see how nature will develop on the island. Currently a bunch of plants have already spread to the island, some are very rare.

Thanks: Roland, Thomas, breakbeat, jensflorian, Marcus Rangell, Simone, Yann & Martin

Locations: Denmark, Sweden / Categories: Bridges

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Thanks: Michael, Alexander Danling & Sputnik

Locations: Sweden / Categories: Stadiums and Sport

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