The Pentagon is surpassed by the largest office building in the new world.

Photo Credit (Freepik)

In Gujarat, India, the recently constructed Surat Diamond Bourse is a huge office complex consisting of nine rectangular buildings joined by a central “spine.”

The Surat Diamond Bourse, a huge diamond-cutting and trading hub, just overtook the Pentagon as the largest building in the world, surpassing its 66,73,624 square feet by about 55,000 square feet. The Pentagon had held the title for 80 years. The Surat Diamond Bourse is a massive 15-story complex on more than 35 acres of land on the outskirts of Surat, Gujarat state, India. It has about 4,700 office spaces and workshops, as well as 131 large elevators that make it easy to move between the nine buildings. It’s interesting to note that the Indian architecture firm Morphogenesis simply struggled to accommodate the enormous demand for space; surpassing the Pentagon was never the objective.

Sonali Rastogi, a co-founder of Morphogenesis, stated that the company’s plan for the building was “based on environmental and sustainable design more than a particular architectural language.” “We decided to create something that is iconic, that borrows… from its context and the community we are working with,” she added.

The Surat Diamond Bourse is expected to become the biggest and most sophisticated center for the global trading in diamonds and jewelry. The primary objective was to bring dealers and artists together under one roof because Surat is where 90% of the world’s diamonds are cut. Morphogenesis chose a layout that was somewhat evocative of an airport terminal: nine rectangular structures joined by a lengthy central passageway.

Although the cost of the new world’s largest office building was 32 billion rupees ($388 million), it was well worth it to house Surat’s thriving diamond industry in one location. Its 131 elevators, which are managed by a computer system, are believed to make it easy for the ordinary individual to ascend any of the nine rectangular buildings in just six minutes, despite their enormous size.

More than 65,000 people, 4,500 cars, and 10,000 two-wheelers can all fit inside the enormous complex—more than some contemporary small cities can.