For over 80 years, The Pentagon in the United States was the largest office building in the world. That record just shifted to India, where the Surat Diamond Bourse took the title. At 660,000-square-meters, the series of connected towers create a massive footprint, almost a city by itself.
The offices will be home to 67,000 diamond trading professionals, and has been under construction for the past eight years. Designed by Morphogenesis, the design certainly isn’t boring, but with a repeated glazed tower layout, it feels like a series of framed computer monitors, and has a decidedly Orwellian feel to it.
With nine 15-story towers situated around a central corridor, the building’s layout is certainly distinctive. Though to our eyes, the sharp lines and exacting repetition feel dehumanizing, with the scale adding to that sense of dystopia. It doesn’t help that the massive structure stands out against the surrounding area, which lacks high rises of the same scale.
Located in the Indian city of Surat, you can read more about this building’s use on Dezeen.
“With nine 15-story towers situated around a central corridor, the building’s layout is certainly distinctive. Though to our eyes, the sharp lines and exacting repetition feel dehumanizing, with the scale adding to that sense of dystopia.”
The US Pentagon in Washington D.C. stood as the largest office building in the world for over 80 years. This year, the Surat Diamond Bourse has overtaken it.
4 comments
Thank you for the comment, post has been updated to reflect the change.
Dystopian or not, this is designed by ‘Morphogenesis’, and not ‘Metamorphosis’ as mentioned in the article.