Plot: Taiwan, China’s renegade province, wanted to make the world sit up and notice it – so it built the planet’s tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101, in its capital city. An architectural meeting of East meets West, Taiwan’s biggest global advertising board and symbol of achievement was a defiant gesture towards its neighbouring superpower, and a calculated quest for Taiwanese commercial attention proving that in modern times, the super-tall building is more than just the corporation HQ of the past