Modern skyscrapers are evolving far beyond traditional observation decks, incorporating elaborate thrill rides and attractions that transform city skylines into vertical amusement parks. The simple formula of 20th-century viewing platforms - featuring wind-blown hair and panoramic city views from structures like the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, and the World Trade Center - no longer satisfies today's adrenaline-seeking tourists. These classic observation decks offered low-tech thrills with open-air platforms surrounded by coin-operated telescopes and iron safety barriers, but standing at 1,000 feet without additional excitement has become insufficient for modern thrill-seekers.
The next generation of sky-high attractions represents a high-maintenance evolution of urban entertainment, featuring integrated Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and glass elevators built directly into architectural designs. Cities like New York and Shanghai have proven capable of absorbing these spectacular additions, as skyscraper architects have always pursued show-stopping elements. However, some critics question whether designs incorporating figure-eight Ferris wheels may have pushed the concept too far, creating what resembles a "Six Flags Skyline Park" that nobody explicitly requested.
The trend began modestly with revolving restaurants crowning towers and luxury hotels from Berlin to Bangkok, revolutionizing urban dining experiences with giant turntables suspended in the sky. Developer-architect John Portman established this direction in 1967 with his blue-domed Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, while the East China Architectural Design & Research Institute elevated the concept to retro-futuristic levels with the Radisson Blu Hotel Shanghai New World in 2003. These rotating dining establishments provided cocktail service alongside slowly changing panoramic views, setting the foundation for more elaborate attractions.
Casino maverick Bob Stupak significantly escalated the concept in the 1990s by constructing the 1,149-foot Stratosphere on the Las Vegas Strip, which became the country's tallest observation tower at the time. While the revolving restaurant served as an appetizer, the main attraction consisted of carnival rides bolted directly to the tower's crown. These included Big Shot, a catapult mechanism blasting riders skyward; X-Scream, a seesaw device suspending visitors over the neon-lit city below; and Insanity, a spinning arm that flings riders face-down toward the Strip. The tower even featured a brief-lived rooftop roller coaster called the High Roller, though SkyJump, a bungee-style leap from the tower's side, remains the Stratosphere's primary draw for high-stakes thrill-seekers.
Learning from the Las Vegas model, developers exported the skyscraper entertainment concept globally, with increasingly elaborate installations. Guangzhou's Canton Tower, completed in 2009 and reaching nearly 2,000 feet in height, crowned itself with a distinctive necklace of orange bubble cabins that slowly circle the building's roof. Similar attractions appeared in Dubai, Macau, and Melbourne, featuring drop rides and sliding glass observation cubes that challenged traditional architectural boundaries.
Even established American skyscrapers received dramatic upgrades, particularly the iconic SOM-designed towers bookending Chicago's skyline. The Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in the Loop added The Ledge, consisting of four glass boxes extending from the 103rd floor, while the John Hancock Center on Michigan Avenue countered with Tilt, a steel-and-glass bay that hydraulically tips eight riders 30 degrees out over the city from the 94th floor. Although these additions appear as small protrusions barely visible from street level, their installation on Modernist architectural classics represents an increasingly casual attitude toward preserving architectural integrity.
Manhattan's competition for thrill-seeking tourists intensified significantly, with two Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) towers demonstrating how spectacle infiltrates architectural design and how architect resistance produces mixed results. The firm's 30 Hudson Yards project, the tallest tower in the $25 billion Hudson Yards megadevelopment, features Edge, a triangular observation platform cantilevered from the 100th floor's southeast corner. James von Klemperer, KPF's president and design principal, acknowledges that the distinctive beak wasn't included in the original design but explains that they approached it as a design challenge rather than an obstacle, seeking geometric and structural integrity that harmonizes with the building's architectural language.
Despite questions about whether Edge represents a gimmick, the attraction has generated significant activity with sunrise yoga sessions and sunset dance parties, providing more vitality than the development's sterile street-level environment. The tower's pyramidal roof offered additional integration opportunities, allowing visitors to pay $185 and wear safety harnesses while climbing a steel stairway to the building's 1,200-foot peak, creating a more architecturally cohesive thrill experience.
KPF's second major Manhattan project, Summit at One Vanderbilt, which opened in 2021, presents "the view that changes you" through multiple attraction elements. The installation includes twin glass elevators attached to the building's crown, while artist Kenzo Digital transformed floors 91 through 93 into an elaborate mirrored funhouse. Von Klemperer initially worried whether the elevators would create a visual scar on the building, noting that pristine architectural envelopes don't appreciate numerous additional elements attached to their surfaces.
While von Klemperer insists the elevators barely interrupt the building's form, he acknowledges losing the design battle over ultra-low-iron glass requirements for the observation levels. This compromise resulted in a multi-story mirrored surface visible from as far away as the Brooklyn Bridge, creating what he describes as a significant visual interruption. "We objected strenuously to the interruption of this clean form, but the owner felt very strongly the views must have maximum transparency," von Klemperer explains, adding that over time he has come to appreciate it "like a piece of a machine uncovered."
More disruptive architectural intrusions appear in Macau and Batumi, Georgia, two cities connected by their incorporation of Ferris wheels - a thrill ride that debuted at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair. Batumi Tower, a 660-foot building designed by Metal Yapi in 2012, holds eight golden passenger cabins positioned 330 feet above ground level, cutting directly into the building's facade in the world's first attempt to integrate a Ferris wheel into a skyscraper's structure. However, the wheel has never functioned properly, and the tower has changed ownership multiple times due to ongoing operational challenges.
Macau's developers doubled down on the concept with Studio City Hotel's Golden Reel, a gondola ride featuring 17 steampunk-themed cabins that circulate through a figure-eight cutout penetrating the building's structure. While the number eight traditionally promises good fortune in Chinese culture, the design inspiration came from Hollywood entertainment: developers describe the concept as "two flaming asteroids crashed through the building facade in tandem." This approach transforms summer blockbuster movie aesthetics into permanent architecture, where form follows fantasy and function follows manufactured fear rather than practical requirements.
Even landmark buildings with protected status face pressure for thrill ride additions. At 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a formerly serene terrace now accommodates multiple moving attractions, including Skylift, a glass pod that rises above the building's roofline, and The Beam, an elevating steel girder offering Depression-era themed lunch experiences atop the skyscraper. These additions raise questions about whether future developments might include even more intrusive elements, such as a drop ride through the Empire State Building's historic mooring mast.
The most ambitious current project is The Torch, a 1,067-foot-tall hotel and thrill ride combination designed by ODA Architecture, currently under construction west of Times Square. This concept merges a conventional glass office tower with a 240-foot structural stem, crowned by a multilevel observation platform wrapped in folded glass with a distinctively canted crown design. Plans call for a drop ride that plunges thrill-seekers down the building's stem, encased within glass walls as the Theater District's dizzying environment accelerates toward them during their descent.
Whether The Torch's drop ride survives the final construction phase remains uncertain, as ODA's Eran Chen declined to provide comments, and an Extell Development spokeswoman indicated it was too early to discuss specific details about the under-construction building. Despite the concept's seemingly excessive nature, the attraction might blend seamlessly into Times Square's existing sensory overload, becoming just another glass tube of screaming tourists sandwiched between 3D billboards, candy-striped architectural elements, and the intensifying electronic cacophony of the Great White Way.
However, modern high-rise thrill attractions can produce genuinely inspired popular architecture, as KPF demonstrated with Shanghai World Financial Center, which many consider the gold standard for integrated observation experiences. The building's 120-foot-long glass and steel skybridge, suspended within the crown's distinctive trapezoidal cutout, represents an enthralling fusion of architectural form and heart-stopping function that enhances rather than compromises the building's design integrity.
Despite successful examples, the persistent desire to create increasingly elaborate attractions continues, along with ongoing questions about whether the industry is approaching a "Six Flags Skyline Park" scenario. Von Klemperer suggests that transforming cities into World's Fair-style playgrounds represents a natural development where structural potential exists, expressing confidence that New York can withstand such additions. With KPF firmly established among the world's premier creators of skyline attractions, he remains enthusiastic about their latest Shanghai project, described as "a cathedral in the air" atop a 1,574-foot sculptural high-rise.
The upcoming Shanghai tower will be a silvery mixed-use building featuring a curved roofline with setbacks that allude to a magnolia - the city's official flower - and will become Shanghai's first all-electric supertall building. Von Klemperer predicts it "will be the world's most exciting experience," though he admits the design doesn't include roller coasters, drop rides, or glass elevators. Instead, the building will feature a helipad accessible to visitors, maintaining what he describes as "that element of 'Can you top this?'" that continues to drive architectural innovation in the vertical entertainment industry.
