CN Tower
"Guinness World Records" has called the CN Tower "the world's tallest self-supporting tower" and "the world's tallest free-standing tower". Although Guinness did list this description of the CN Tower under the heading "tallest building" at least once, it has also listed it under "tallest tower", omitting it from its list of "tallest buildings." In 1996, Guinness changed the tower's classification to "World's Tallest Building and Freestanding Structure". Emporis and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat both listed the CN Tower as the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, and specifically state that the CN Tower is not a true building, thereby awarding the title of world's tallest building to Taipei 101, which is shorter than the CN Tower. The issue of what was tallest became moot when Burj Khalifa, then under construction, exceeded the height of the CN Tower in 2007 (see below).
Maharishi Vastu Architecture
The Maharishi hired Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the World Trade Center towers, to design the world's tallest building. Called "The Centre of India" or the "Vedic Vishwa Prashasan", the 160-story, 2,222' (675.5m) tall building would have been considerably higher than the 1,483' Petronas Towers, then the tallest building in the world. The layered, pyramid-shaped building would be decorated ornately, with arches and columns, like a Hindu or Vedic temple. The base would be 339 meters square, about 11.5 hectares. Priced at $2.5bn, it would have been large enough to hold 60,000 or 100,000 meditators. The foundation stone was laid on November 6, 1998, at the Brahmasthan of India. The elaborate, three-hour ceremony was attended by dignitaries, including representatives from ten countries, and 2,000 local villagers. No specific completion date was given. As of 2010, the Indian tower was still described in news reports as an active project.