Ekemini Ekpo

Ekemini Ekpo is a writer and artist from the American and Nigerian Souths. She covers arts, culture, and the built environment.

Sleek and shiny, and tall enough to create its own private cloud cover, the City of Austin’s first supertall seeks to be “a building for our time.” I take this declaration as an invitation to question the assumptions being made about my hometown. What versions of past and present Austin would allow such an unequivocal claim?

Waterline is a 1,034 feet supertall skyscraper in Austin, Texas, designed to be mixed-use with residential, office, and hotel space. It is the tallest building in Texas. 3 March 2026. Photo: Quintin Soloviev. Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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