Torre Mayor (Mexico City, Mexico)
Mexico City is one of the most earthquake-prone cities on the planet, a fact driven home by an 8.1 Richter scale quake in 1985, which killed 9,000 people and caused $4 billion worth of property damage. But Torre Mayor, Mexico City's tallest building, is built to withstand such a disaster. The 55-story office tower, designed by Zeidler Partnership Architects of Toronto, is equipped with 98 liquid-filled shock absorbers, or dampers, set into the base, sides and core of the structure. When an earthquake strikes, the dampers in the basement absorb the brunt of the shock. The remaining force runs up the building, and is absorbed by successive sets of dampers. Torre Mayor manager Gerald Ricker told a newspaper interviewer in 2005 that an 8.1 quake would cause the building to move less than the typical New York City skyscraper would sway in a 20-mph wind. In January 2003, just a few months after Torre Mayor opened, the anti-earthquake system was put to the test by a 7.6 magnitude quake. Tenants reportedly heard some creaking but felt little movement, and the building was undamaged. The biggest risk to human life at Torre Mayor has come not from an earthquake, but from the building's 738-foot height. In January 2006, Austrian stuntman Felix Baumgartner startled onlookers by jumping from the top and parachuting to ground level, where he managed to hold a quick press conference before fleeing Mexican authorities.