Features
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 02:12
Written by April Fong

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Does size still matter?
Tall stories surround Shanghai’s latest skyscraper project

Thank god. For a minute there we were getting anxious that Shanghai was running low on tall, phallic symbols of economic progress. But you’ll be relieved to hear the ground has recently been broken for another mega skyscraper – the Shanghai Tower.

Together with its neighbors, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC), this 632m building will add one more gigantic spike to the glitzy Lujiazui skyline. While the pagoda-like design of the Jin Mao harks back to the country’s past, and the SWFC’s sharp angles symbolize its confident present, this newest planned addition will spiral upwards like a dragon’s coiled tail to act as a beacon of China’s prosperous future.

By 2014, when the Shanghai Tower is expected to open, the trio of elevated edifices in the Luijiazui Financial and Trade Zone will finally be complete. But not everyone is feeling the excitement. A China Daily editorial recently slammed the ground-breaking ceremonies, saying the super structure demonstrates “that blind worship and race for skyscrapers have reached a new high.”

Anxieties about the construction are already manifest in the city. There is real concern that the Shanghai Tower will add to the excessive number of super-tall buildings that are making Shanghai sink, it will add to traffic pressures, and make summers even more unbearable with the urban heat island effect.

Patrick Cranley, founder of Historic Shanghai, a heritage association that promotes Shanghai's architectural and cultural history, supports the concern. “From my point of view, the huge proportion of city money that is being spent on mega-projects in Shanghai compared to so little being invested in historic architecture is economically inefficient,” he argues. “Shanghai’s older buildings are just as integral to the city's identity and culture as these super-scrapers.”

So is the RMB14.8 billion project heading for infamy?

Callum MacBean, managing director of Gensler, the architectural firm leading the tower’s design in Shanghai, thinks not. “All I would say is the criticisms are totally inaccurate,” he told Urbanatomy.com. “I think any building will always encounter criticism if it’s doing something different. If people understood the design, then they would ultimately compliment the building as being a great sustainable solution.”

The building’s architects seem anything but anxious when it comes to its popularity among Shanghainese. Jun Xia, Gensler’s design director in Shanghai, says the skyscraper will enhance the city’s image, and allow it to compete with the world’s leading financial centers like Hong Kong and New York.

“This city opens its arms to the world. Shanghai is innovative, inclusive and is always ready for something new,” Xia says. “We want this to be a people’s building and the most sustainable skyscraper of our generation.”

The Shanghai Tower will be composed of nine cylindrical buildings stacked on top of one another. Its transparent
double-skin façade includes an inner layer enclosing the stacked buildings, and a triangular exterior for its second skin, which rotates as it rises. From bottom to top, the spiral twists 120 degrees, or one third of a circle. So even numerically speaking, the building’s design is a metaphor for its harmonization with the Jin Mao and SWFC. “They are not the same, but working together as a family,” Xia explains.

Its free-flowing and tapered shape is not only reflective of traditional Chinese aesthetics, but will also reduce wind loads and therefore construction costs. The tower includes wind turbines to generate power, and a rain collection system for the tower’s air conditioning.

The 128-storey Shanghai Tower will, of course, be home to a luxury hotel, an office and retail space, and for that all important kudos, the world’s highest non-enclosed observation deck on its uppermost floors. With the tower’s
restaurants and sky gardens lining its perimeter, Xia is confident that “vertical neighborhoods” will be created. The
future, it seems, is up in the sky.

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