The world's most renowned architecture prize for skyscrapers, the Emporis Skyscraper Award, has been awarded to the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea.

Lotte World Tower is currently South Korea's tallest completed building and, in many ways, a skyscraper of superlatives. The 555-meter-high tower houses the world's highest glass-bottomed observation deck. Even the elevator is record-breaking: at 600 meters per minute, it is currently the fastest in the world.

This year's second place went to the Generali Tower in Milan, designed by recently deceased architect Zaha Hadid. The skyscraper's extravagant form earned it the nickname "Lo Storto" which means the “Twisted One”. The jury especially praised the building’s high standards in terms of energy efficiency. The building has a double skin fa?ade and a sophisticated sunscreen, which ensures excellent energy performance on each floor. Generali Tower has therefore also received LEED Platinum, the highest certification given out by the US Green Building Council.

The third-placed project is 150 North Riverside in Chicago. Designed by Goettsch Partners, it is the building’s innovative and complex engineering work that stands out. The skyscraper is located next to the Chicago River on one side and several active train tracks on the other. The extremely narrow lot that the tower sits upon had been deemed impossible to build on for years due to its limited size. Goettsch Partners then came up with the tower’s daring design that features only a very small footprint while the building grows outward to its full size on the higher floors. A masterpiece of structural engineering.