Shanghai Tower

Shanghai Tower, at 501 Yincheng Middle Road in Lujiazui, is 632 metres high and the tallest building in China. Its outer glass skin twists as it rises.

The American firm Gensler designed it. Construction began in November 2008, and both Wikipedia articles give 29 November in their lead text. The structure was topped out in August 2013. Sources differ on the exact day, giving 3 August or 4 August.

The twist is the main feature of the design. The facade is built as two glass layers, and the outer layer turns through 120 degrees from bottom to top. English Wikipedia says this reduces wind loads on the tower by 24 percent.

The observation floors were fully open to the public from 26 April 2017. Sources disagree on how high the top deck is: Chinese Wikipedia puts the 118th-floor observation hall at 546 metres, while English Wikipedia describes a higher level at 562 metres. Lifts were a notable part of the project. Chinese and English Wikipedia both say they ran at up to 20.5 metres a second until 2017, when a tower in Guangzhou with faster lifts overtook them. English Wikipedia adds that three shuttle lifts to the observation deck run at 18 metres a second.

The upper floors also hold the J Hotel Shanghai Tower, which opened on 19 June 2021. The Shanghai World Financial Center is to the east of the site and the Jin Mao Tower to the north.

The observation deck is ticketed. The tower’s official site could not be read here, so check it for current hours and prices.