![]() To put it in perspective, the lift travels approximately four times faster than rush-hour traffic. In terms of transportation, for instance, it has the tallest and fastest lifts travelling at 40mph to almost the full height of the tower: that’s 580 metres in 32 seconds. Not to be outdone, the Chinese government has described this building as ‘a symbol of a nation whose future is filled with limitless opportunities’. ![]() This was Jun’s last official duty before leaving Gensler for pastures new.Īs if to make the point about the rapid pace of change in this area, Jun stated that the ‘traditional design-influenced Jin Mao Tower (designed by SOM and completed in 1999) represents our past, the Shanghai World Financial Centre (by KPF, completed 2008) represents our present, but the Shanghai Tower represents China’s boundless future’. We were given rare access to this new addition to the building just before completion in the company of Gensler’s managing principal, Daniel Winey and Xia Jun, Shanghai Tower’s design leader and a star in the Chinese architectural firmament. The project started in November 2008 and is just about to complete at a cost of around £1.5 billion. It is the second tallest tower in the world when we visited but closely rivalled by another Chinese tower, Tianjin 117 in north China designed by P+T Group that comes in at 596.5metres. The latest addition to the skyline is the 632-metre high Shanghai Tower, designed by Gensler. ‘Not to be outdone, the Chinese government has described this building as ‘a symbol of a nation whose future is filled with limitless opportunities’’ But even though the traffic, footbridges, construction sites and blistering sun don’t make it easy to explore, it is a thoroughly exciting place to try. For some people, liveability and urban quality have become something of a casualty of that war. In the process, it has become an experimental urban battleground for competing architectural visions. In the rapid rise of its river frontage and business district, Pudong’s Lujiazui is an economic and developmental miracle. But what has occurred on this speck, within a mere generation of market liberalisation, exemplifies the dynamism of China’s crazy and wonderful urbanisation. This built-up area is a mere speck on the western tip of Pudong’s 450-square-mile expanse and, to a certain extent, lots of Pudong district still remains rural and isolated. What most people tend to think of as Pudong is actually the development zone called Lujiazui. Its drama is manifested in thousands of tourist selfies taken from the West Bund of Shanghai, over the river towards the Pearl Tower. Nowadays, the east bank of the Huangpu River epitomises the rapidity of Chinese urban expansion. Taste aside, the Shanghai Tower by Gensler is fit for purpose and awaits the weddings, banquets and office-party regulars necessary to pay for this megastructureįorty-five years ago, Pudong – which literally means the riverside (pu) on the east (dong) bank – was sufficiently underdeveloped that during the Cultural Revolution many Shanghai students were ‘sent down to the countryside’ to state-owned farms in Fengxian, south-west Pudong.
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