At 2,722 feet – Nicole Smith-Ludvik at the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world

Nicole Smith-Ludvik is shown standing on a platform atop the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building – in Dubai.
Photo: nicolesmithludvik.com

Perhaps no one will quite understand what it feels like to be at the very top of the Burj Khalifa quite like Nicole Smith-Ludvick, a skydiver and stuntwoman, who stood on top of Burj Khalifa’s spire in an advertisement for Emirates airline, presents ‘Admiddleeast. com’.

“Standing on the pinnacle of the world’s tallest man-made structure, a place where no other woman has ever been, was one of the most extraordinary and exhilarating experiences I have ever had,” Smith-Ludvick tells AD. To shoot the commercial, she went to the top of building three times for about five hours each, usually arriving right before sunrise. “At this time of day, the city is still mostly asleep, so it’s quiet and serene,” she says. “I got a bird’s eye view of the sun rising over the Arabian desert; I watched the fog roll in from the ocean and burn off as the temperature warmed up.” Other than the views, Smith-Ludvick says the most notable difference between the Burj and the ground is the noise pollution. “It was much quieter up there,” she says.

Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
Photo: Admiddleeast.com

At 2,722 feet from base to tip, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. When construction finished in 2010, it claimed the record from Taipei 101, a mixed-use building in Taipei, China, that stands at 1,667 feet tall. For greater context, two Eiffel Towers could be stacked on top of each other, and the Burj Khalifa would still be taller; the Empire State building just barely passes Burj Khalifa’s midpoint. Excluding the antenna and spire, the building is 1,919 feet tall, which is still equivalent to almost six and half football fields stacked on top of each other.

However, this is only one of the many world records Dubai’s Burj Khalifa holds. The monumental skyscraper is also the tallest structure ever built (surpassing the 2,121-foot Warsaw Radio Mast), the tallest freestanding structure (surpassing Toronto’s 1,815-foot CN Tower), and the building with the most floors (surpassing the World Trade Center’s 110 floors to its 163).

As part of a commercial for Emirates airline, Smith-Ludvick visited the top of Burj Khalifa’s spire three separate times.
Photo: Admiddleeast.com