Starchitect Libeskind Proposes Building a Skyscraper on Top of a Skyscraper

Many cities have heated debates about the construction of a new tall tower. The city of Antwerp is going one further — it’s currently debating a plan to build a tower on top of an existing skyscraper.

The design in question is from the studio of starchitect Daniel Libeskind. The proposed home to a new arts center to be created with private money by billionaire art collector Fernand Huts, the tower will feature both an angular glass crown and an adjacent steepled, shard-like shaft filled with greenery. The plan, which won a competition for the proposed site in 2022 but has not yet sought planning consent, is understandably controversial in low-rise Antwerp, where the tallest structure still remains the 123 meter ( 404 foot) medieval spire of the Cathedral of Our Lady. But the new tower — already damned last week by key figures in Flanders’s architecture establishment as “meaningless ostentatious spectacle” — will not actually rise from the ground directly. Instead, it will sit atop another existing tower — a splendid art deco skyscraper that is itself one of Antwerp’s best-known landmarks.