Travel Notes #摩天楼
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.
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.
Shanghai Tower: a vertical city at 632 metres
In the heart of Lujiazui, 632 metres tall and 127 floors above ground, fully open since 2016 — China's tallest building and third in the world. The observatory sits at 546 metres on floor 118, a 1,000-tonne damper fills floor 126, and the city's highest bookshop is on 52.