Pudong Skyline
Thursday, 17th August 2006 by Alex Turnbull
The skyline of Shanghai's Pudong district is dominated by two enormous structures: the 468 metre Oriental Pearl Tower and the 420.5 metre Jin Mao Building.
The striking looking Oriental Pearl Tower is the tallest tower in Asia, and the third tallest (self supporting) tower in the world (and naturally a member of the World Federation of Great Towers), lagging just behind the Ostankino and CN Tower.
As well as the usual astonishing statistics asssociated with these huge buildings, the Jin Mao Building is home to a hotel that breaks several world-records. The five-star, 555-room Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel which occupies floors 53 to 87 is the highest hotel in the world (in terms of distance from the ground), has the world's highest swimming pool on floor 57, and right up on floor 87, the world's highest bar, appropriately named 'Cloud 9'.
It also has the world's longest laundry chute, which runs down the full length of the tower to the basement (and incorporates buffers to slow down the laundry during its descent).
Wikipedia: Oriental Pearl Tower, Jin Mao Building, World Federation of Great Towers, List of World's Tallest Self Supporting Towers.
Thanks: Haochi Chen, Julien G, Babaganoosh, Christopher O'Connell, Scott and Ben.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
World’s highest bar on 87? The Handcock in Chicago has a bar called The 95th, because, you know, it’s on the 95th floor. Are the Handcock’s floors that much shorter that the 87th floor of the Jin Mao is higher than the 95th of the Handcock?
Jin Mao tower also claims to have the world’s highest post office at the 88th floor.
Steve–
I thought that was odd, too. Yes, the Signature Lounge is on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building, which just might be the highest bar in terms of stories. However, in absolute terms the Jin Mao is a taller building overall (420m to the roof versus 343m to the Hancock’s roof). So it would indeed appear that the floor heights in the Jin Mao are higher. –RN
It appears the Asians like their high ceilings compared to the Americans. There are many buildings in the US approaching the 100-floor mark, but despite all the tall buildings going up in the far east, so far only Taipei 101 has more than 100 storeys. The Petronas towers only manage 88, and decorative spires aside, it’s partly due to the height of each floor being greater.
Oh, and to anyone without the time to follow links and read up on the sights, at least make time to look at photos of the hotel lobby, which runs up the middle for the whole height of the hotel portion of the building: http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=shanghai+hyatt+lobby&btnG=Search
I recently got back from a Trip to Shanghai. I took some photos of the Pudong skyline, which I stitched together to form some massive panoramas.
The daytime one is here: http://luke.sleeman.googlepages.com/daypanoramaretouchedsmall.jpg
And the night time one is at: http://luke.sleeman.googlepages.com/Shanghaipanoramanightsmall.jpg
hey luke, you got some great pictures. when i was there in may everything was very smogy.
those satelite images seem to be old and missing lots of the newer buildings that form the skyline, including the new shangri-la tower and many others
hehehe, and I thought it was pretty smoggy when I went there š The ironic thing was we had just come from Hong Kong where they are up in arms about air polution, yet have some of the cleanest skies around. The Hong Kong people should try visiting Shanghai!
I was there in April this year and man was it smoggy. When I was at the top level, I could barely see across the river. Sadly, it started to clear up when I went to the 1st observation deck. Btw below the tower is a great wax museum of the history of Shanghai. Here are some of my Flickr pics from my trip http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbeng/sets/72057594123891778/