Man Vs. Nature

A graphic from Le Petit Larousse Illustré, called Man Vs. Nature from 1925.

A bit of context can change many things. Take a look at this drawing, titled Man Vs. Nature from a 1925 edition of Le Petit Larousse Illustré. The graphic compares the tallest works of architecture at the time to major mountain peaks from nature. It's a reality check to consider the size of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, shown as a tiny speck on the bottom left of the image. It's quite humbling that our tallest, most important buildings are mere crumbs compared to the giants of nature. Currently, our greatest achievement of height is the Kingdom Tower, under construction in Saudi Arabia and designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. That tower is planned to be 1 kilometer (3,281 feet) tall, which is the height of the first horizontal zone in this drawing. Humans can have profound effects on our environment, but our greatest physical achievements come nowhere close to the sheer scale of it.