A Tall Order
The sky isn’t the limit for an architect building the world’s first invisible skyscraper.
Charles Wee, one of the world’s leading high-rise architects, has a confession to make: he’s bored with skyscrapers. After designing more than 30, most of which punctuate the skylines of rapidly expanding Asian cities, he has struck upon a novel concept: the first invisible skyscraper.
As the tallest structure in South Korea, his Infinity Tower will loom over Seoul until somebody pushes a button and it completely disappears.
When he entered a 2004 competition to design a landmark tower, the Korean-American architect rejected the notion of competing with Dubai, Toronto, and Shanghai to reach the summit of man-made summits. “I thought, let’s not jump into this stupid race to build another ‘tallest’ tower,” he says in a phone conversation. “Let’s take an opposite approach – let’s make an anti-tower.”
The result will be a 150-story building that fades from view at the f1ick of a switch. The tower will effectively function as an enormous television screen, being able to project an exact replica of whatever is happening behind it onto its façade. To the human eye, the building will appear to have melted away.
It will be the most extraordinary achievement of Wee’s stellar architectural career. After graduating from UCLA, he worked under Anthony Lumsden, a prolific Californian architect who helped devise the modern technique of wrapping buildings inside smooth glass skins.
HINES. N. Disponível em: http://mag.newsweek.com. Acesso em: 13 out. 2013 (adaptado).
No título e no subtítulo desse texto, as expressões A Tall Order e The sky isn’t lhe limit são usadas para apresentar uma matéria cujo tema é:
a) Inovações tecnológicas usadas para a construção de um novo arranha-céu em Seul.
b) Confissões de um arquiteto que busca se destacar na construção de arranha-céus.
c) Técnicas a serem estabelecidas para a construção de edifícios altos na Califórnia.
d) Competição entre arquitetos para a construção do edifício mais alto do mundo.
e) Construção de altas torres de apartamentos nas grandes metrópoles da Ásia.
Resposta
A tall order normalmente quer dizer uma tarefa formidável, e the sky isn’t the limit significa que o céu não é o limite.
No texto, essas expressões são usadas para se referir às novidades tecnológicas usadas na construção no novo arranha-céu em Seul. Por exemplo, veja o trecho:
The tower will effectively function as an enormous television screen, being able to project an exact replica of whatever is happening behind it onto its façade. To the human eye, the building will appear to have melted away.A torre funcionará efetivamente como uma enorme tela de televisão, capaz de projetar uma replica exata do que estiver acontecendo por trás da sua fachada. Para o olho humano, o prédio dará a impressão de ter derretido.
Letra A.
