Travel Notes Shanghai Tower: a vertical city at 632 metres
The last of the three
The tower stands in the heart of Lujiazui, with Yincheng Middle Road to the east and the Lujiazui ring road to the north, and has been fully operating since 2016. It rises 632 metres with 127 floors above ground and five below, covering about 578,000 square metres. With Jin Mao of 1999 and the World Financial Center of 2008, it completes the skyline locals call the three-piece set.
Why it spirals
A global competition in 2006 chose the American practice Gensler’s spiralling scheme, drawn from the Chinese ideas of a round sky and square earth and from the dragon. Each floor twists about one degree, a total of 120 from base to crown, and wind-tunnel tests showed this cuts wind load by roughly 24 per cent. More than twenty thousand glass panels of different sizes make up the scale-like surface.
The deck called Top of Shanghai
The 118th-floor observatory sits 546 metres above sea level, the highest indoor viewing level in the city, with 360-degree glass, visibility beyond forty kilometres, a sky post office and a wishing tree; floor 119 holds a cafe. An adult ticket is 180 yuan, students and seniors 120, and the damper space on 126 costs another 80.
The 1,000-tonne eye at the top
Floor 126 houses the 1,000-tonne active electromagnetic damper nicknamed the Eye of Shanghai, built to ride out typhoons and earthquakes. It has been turned into an art installation, the space inside hosts light shows, and you can watch the giant pendulum move at close range. It takes a whole floor at the top, and that is what sets this tower apart from the other two.
The world records inside
The building holds the world’s fastest lifts at eighteen metres a second and the world’s highest hotel, the J Hotel, on floors 84 to 110. On 52, the Duoyun Books flagship is the highest bookshop in the city, mixing books, gifts, coffee and exhibitions, with window seats booked in advance. A sculpture by Chen Yifei, Shanghai Girl, stands in the lobby.
When to go up
The observatory runs 8:30 to 22:00 with last entry at 21:30, five minutes on foot from exit 6 of Lujiazui station on Lines 2 and 14. Go up between 16:00 and 18:00 on a clear day to catch daylight, sunset and night in one visit. The glass on 118 reflects badly, so bring a polarising filter; the interior sits at about 24 degrees, so no extra layers are needed.
Shanghai Tower wins on height plus content: an observatory at 546 metres, a damper on 126, a bookshop on 52 and a hotel from 84 up. In one day you can look at the same city four times from different floors — not only the tallest building in Shanghai, but the most fully used.
Practical information
- Hours: daily 8:30-22:00, last entry 21:30.
- Tickets: 180 yuan adult for floor 118, 120 yuan for students and seniors; the damper space on 126 costs another 80.
- Getting there: five minutes on foot from exit 6 of Lujiazui station on Lines 2 and 14.
- Booking: buy ahead through the official account or travel platforms.
- Tip: go up between 16:00 and 18:00 on a clear day for daylight, sunset and night; drones are banned.
Related reading
Shanghai World Financial Center: the 474-metre observatory
The first of Lujiazui's three towers to top out, 492 metres and 101 floors, opened in 2008. Its observatory on floor 100 sits at 474 metres above a fifty-five-metre stretch of transparent glass floor — the earliest place in Shanghai to leave you hanging in mid-air.
Jin Mao Tower: A 420.5-Metre Pagoda with Thirteen Tapering Stages
Jin Mao Tower stands in Lujiazui in Pudong. At 420.5 metres and eighty-eight storeys, it was the tallest building in mainland China when it finished in 1999 and remains one of the most recognisable high-rises in Shanghai. Adrian Smith of the American firm SOM led the design; the facade narrows in thirteen stages into a pagoda shape, a phrase about climbing step by step. The eighty-eighth floor observation deck sits at 340 metres over about 1,520 square metres, one of the earliest high-level viewing platforms in the city.
Oriental Pearl Tower: a 468-metre television tower
On the Huangpu in Lujiazui, 468 metres tall and open since May 1995, this was China's first television tower designed and built entirely by Chinese teams. Three observation levels — the space capsule, upper sphere and lower sphere — frame the classic view across the river.
The Bund: One and a Half Kilometres Where Two Centuries of Shanghai Stand Side by Side
The Bund runs from Garden Bridge in the north to Jinling Road East in the south, a little over 1.5 kilometres. Fifty-two buildings of the modern era stand along it, twenty-three of them national protected monuments, and in 1996 the Bund architecture grouping entered the World Heritage list. By day it is red brick and Ionic columns; after dark the whole row sinks into a golden edge while Lujiazui answers from the far bank. Free and open around the clock.
Shanghai: Two Shores of the Huangpu, Foreign Architecture and a Skyline
Shanghai goes by the short form Hu and the old name Shen, sits where the Yangtze meets the sea and belongs to East China. The Huangpu divides the city in two: west, the foreign-built architecture, lane houses and plane-tree streets of the treaty-port years; east, the towers of Lujiazui. From the museum at People Square to the Bund, across on a two-yuan ferry, up to the 546-metre deck of the Shanghai Tower; then turn into the old town for Ming rockeries at Yu Garden, the nine-turning bridge at the City God Temple, or an afternoon in the narrow lanes of Xintiandi and Tianzifang.