History of the world's tallest buildings
The buildings that were the tallest secular skyscrapers, which excludes religious buildings, were:
The list of tallest buildings is based on the default metric of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), that of measuring to the highest architectural element. Other criteria would generate a different list. Shanghai World Financial Center is not on the above list, but it surpassed Taipei 101 in 2008 to become the building with the highest occupied floor. Using the criteria of highest tip (including antennae), the World Trade Center in New York City was the world's tallest building from 1972 to 2000, until the Sears Tower in Chicago (which already had a higher occupied floor than the World Trade Center) had its antenna extended to give that building the world's tallest tip; a title it held until the 2010 completion of Burj Khalifa. Petronas Towers and Taipei 101 were never the world's tallest buildings by the highest–tip criteria.
Taipei 101
Taipei 101 / TAIPEI 101, formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center – is a landmark supertall skyscraper in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. The building was officially classified as the world's tallest from 2004 until the 2010 completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In 2011, the building received Platinum certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, and became the tallest and largest green building in the world. At one point it had the fastest elevator in the world, traveling at and transporting passengers from the 5th to 89th floor in 37 seconds.