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Annual Awards · Vanity Ratio Based
Two awards. One for the most honest skyscraper. One for the least. Both decided entirely by the data.
Lowest Vanity Ratio
Given to the building with the lowest Vanity Ratio in the Honest 100
Architecture that earns its height. No decorative steel, no ornamental spires, no padding. The Honest Horizon goes to the building whose architectural top and occupied ceiling are closest together - where what you see from the street is genuinely what people use inside.
Current nominee
CITIC Tower (China Zun)
1.1%
See nominees →
Highest Vanity Ratio
Given to the building with the highest Vanity Ratio in the Honest 100
Architecture that misrepresents its height. The Padded Pinnacle recognises the building that added the most decorative, unoccupied structure above its highest useful floor - measured as a percentage of total architectural height. The current reigning holder added 131.8 metres of spire to a 55-floor office building.
Current nominee
Bank of America Tower
36.0%
See nominees →
Both awards are determined by Vanity Ratio - the percentage of a building's total architectural height that sits above its highest occupied floor. A building with zero decorative spire scores 0%. A building where a third of its structure is unoccupied decoration scores 33%.
Nominees are drawn from the Honest 100 - the 100 tallest buildings by confirmed occupied height. Only buildings with verified occupied floor data are eligible. Buildings with unverified data sit in the pending pool and are ineligible until confirmed.
These are editorial awards. They are satire. They are not affiliated with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the Council on Vertical Urbanism, or any other industry body. The Vanity Ratio is our metric. The methodology is public at /methodology.