Move aside Dubai: Could the world's tallest building at 230 storeys high be actually built in the once war-ravaged Iraqi city of Basra?
'Bride of the Gulf' skyscraper would be one of four interconnected towers
We're used to the crown of "world's tallest building" following the world's economic centre of gravity: the US for most of the 20th century, then Asia (Malaysia's Petronas Towers, Taiwan's Taipei 101), and now Dubai, with the Burj Khalifa due to be superseded by Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Tower in about 2019.
But now comes a tower to eclipse them all - in Iraq. Yes, you read that right: the world's tallest building is due to be in Basra, southern Iraq.
It is called The Bride of the Gulf, and it will be 230 storeys - 1,152 metres - high. That's roughly the Burj Khalifa with the Shard on top of it.
But height is not the goal, according to its designers, British-Iraqi architecture firm AMBS.
Instead, they want to create a "vertical city", with four interlinked towers of varying heights, containing not just offices and hotels and the usual stuff, but also "its own transport systems, schools, clinics and neighbourhoods". There's also a vast canopy over a public area at the base of the towers, called "The Veil".
There's a security aspect to their plan, too, architect Marcos De Andres explains: 9/11 exposed the weakness of the standalone skyscraper when it came to escape routes, so a cluster of interconnected towers is far safer.
