Susan's Shanghai Blog - Shanghai Tower

**NEW   March 2014 pictures posted at the bottom (click date link to go directly there)

Next door to our apartment complex is a construction site for the Shanghai Tower. The Shanghai Tower is a supertall skyscraper that, when completed, is slated to be the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world, the tallest being the Khalifa in Dubai. It will also become China's tallest structure of any kind, surpassing the Canton Tower in Guangzhou. It is supposed to be completed in 2014, and will have 128 stories and be 2,073 feet tall (632 meters). What is quite unique about this (other than how tall it will be) is the fact that there are three supertall buildings right together, on 3 adjacent city blocks. The others are the Jin Mao Tower (where Tom works, completed in 1998 with 88 stories) and the Shanghai World Financial Center (where Tom tends to eat lunch, completed in 2008, with 101 stories). When completed, they will form the world's only grouping of three adjacent supertall buildings.

It has a couple unique architectural features that makes it a "green" building, including the design of the tower's glass facade, which is supposed to reduce wind loads on the building by 24%. In addition, there will be vertical-axis wind turbines located near the top of the tower will generate up to 350,000 kWh of electricity per year, supplementing the tower's conventional electrical power systems.

The architectural firm has a website that provides updates and explains some of the construction techniques at http://www.gensleron.com/cities/2011/5/25/construction-update-shanghai-tower.html.

We are planning to take monthly pictures (near the end of each month) and put them here, so that people can see the progress through the 24 months or so that we are living next door to the construction site.


June 2011


July 2011


August 2011


September 2011


October 2011


November 2011


December 2011


January 2012


February 2012


March 2012

You can see the outer wall casings are much more pronounced at the bottom and middle. The core is now around 70 or 75 stories tall it looks like, although hard to tell. At the top, it looks like they are starting to put another outer wall casing, which seems to be about every 10-12 stories.




April 2012

They've made alot of progress as you can see in just the last month. The 3rd outer wall casing is there and there are still more floors up above. We know that it isn't as high as 87 stories yet (or so) since we were at the 87th floor Cloud9 bar at the Hyatt last night and we were still looking down to the top, but it is getting close!!

 

May 2012 - this month they are again making alot of progress, including alot of work around the framing of what will be an outer curtain wall of glass.

May 2012

May 2012

May 2012

 

June 2012 - it is getting up there, we think it is about 65 stories now.  You can see the start of another "ring" that comes out, look just below the concrete part at the top and you can see the beams that poke out.

June 2012

 

July 2012

August 2012 - So. they have finally started putting glass on the outer edge near the bottom ring, as you can see in the 2nd and 3rd photos.

August 2012

August 2012

August 2012

 

September 2012 - They are up to about 70 stories, based on the fact that a colleague of Tom's is staying on the 72nd floor of the JinMao Tower in the hotel, and can see the top of the Shanghai Tower construction just slightly below her. They are up to about 8 rows of glass and have started the 5th "outer" ring where they will attach the glass panels to.

September 2012

Obviously, not a very clear day! They have completed the 5th "outer" ring at the top.

October 2012

They've started another section of windows and have the bottom section almost completed. We're going to have to find another place to take the pictures from, since we can no longer get the whole tower in anymore.

November 2012

The full tower, it keeps getting taller and taller. To me, it looks now about as tall as Jinmao.

December 2012

I tried to get a really good closeup of the inner glass wall and the outer glass wall.

December 2012

 

December 2012

This I believe is one of the special sections that are added to alot of new towers now, based on the issues hit in the World Trade Center collapses. From what I have read, these sections will have separate air sources and are supposed to be "safe zones" in case of fire.

December 2012

This may be the last week that I can take the picture from this location, since I can now barely get the whole tower in.

January 2013

Closeup of the 2 almost complete sections of the outer glass

January 2013

Closeup of the next couple sections up.

February 2013 - the second section of glass is almost completed

March 2013 -great progress

April 2013 - only one picture this month

May 2013

Depending on where you are looking from, it looks taller than SWFC (although this picture it doesn't)

June 2013

We had to move over to the other side of the river now, because we can really no longer get the tower in. Also, this gives a really good view of the other towers around it. The Shanghai World Financial Center, the one that looks like a can opener at the top, is now looking a bit shorter than the inner core.  It looks like they have about 4 more rows of exterior glass on the ring that they are working on, and then will move up.  The concrete core is almost done and we assume there will be one final "ring" at the top of the concrete before they put the cap on the top.

July 2013

Capping Ceremony

The Shanghai Tower's main structure (the concrete core) is now complete and was "capped" in a small ceremony held on the construction site. We could actually see it from the windows near our elevators. You can see a few people standing in the middle of the picture, and if you look closely, you can see the little "cannons" (closeup in 2nd picture). They hoisted a steel girder up with flags and streamers hanging from the bottom of it and some sign on it (in Chinese, so we don't really know what it says). As it went up, they shot off the cannons with confetti. There were also large red balloons on the other corner.

August 2013

September 2013

A slightly different view, as I did them on my morning walk going south along the river.

October 2013

Back across the river

November 2013

Ugly, ugly day .. there has been ALOT of pollution lately, so I apologize that the tower is shrouded in a lovely blanket of smog. They've also started doing alot of work around the bottom (last 2 pictures).

December 2013

Okay, we cheated a little on these, as they were taken on January 1st. It was a really nice day for January 1st as well! We took a few more this week. We start with a few of the lower part. You can see quite a bit of progress on the lower "lobby" area. Also, if you take a look at the 4th picture (the one that looks like we took a picture of a tree without leaves) ... look at the white building behind the tree ... if you look closely, you can see where it looks like they demolished a section of the building to the left of what is visible. It looks like perhaps they are starting to take down some of the housing .. perhaps the number of workers is less now that the majority of the core is done?

These are of the pavillion. You can see one section is covered in black, but then the entire Eastern side is covered in glass and they have it pretty much done there.

And then back across the river for the full shots. We also tried to get a few close-ups of the work that they are finishing on the interior and exterior glass on one of the sections, and some for what is going on at the very top.

Also a couple pictures with the top of one of the other buildings being built (almost done). You can see that they seem to have covered the top section with glass.

January 2014

It is now 609 meters in height and construction is on-schedule to completed by the end of this year, standing a total of 632 meters.

These were taken in a couple different batches. These first ones were specifically of the Pavillion and were taken from the 9th floor of the JinMao Tower next door. There is a bit of glare from the glass (sorry). These were also taken a week or so earlier than the later pictures this month.

You can definitely see the section in the middle which is inset a little bit from the two sides and today, has no outer covering on it.

In this one, you can see the white part is what seems to us to be the concrete entranceway into the front of the building.

And this is one of the sides, the one going towards the river. It is supposed to have an open top based on the artists drawings of it. They are starting to get the glass on this side as well .. the other side is fully glassed-in now.

A different angle, this one coming from the South. They give another view of the three super-towers together and the size difference between the Shanghai Tower, JinMao (in the middle) and the Shanghai World Financial Center (the bottle-opener).

Back across the river on the Puxi side, another view of the three together, this time in a different order due to the angle. You can barely see JinMao over top of the CitiBank building. The top part of the tower is taking shape and they look to be starting on one of the last 2 sections of the glass. We aren't really sure what-all is going on up-top but it definitely looks different than the section below it.

For those who are interested (like me) on how they will get those last 2 cranes down. Well .. I can figure that one crane can take the other off, but how do you get that last big crane off the tower? The Shanghai Daily had an article on this. It says that a series of ever-smaller cranes will be used to dismantle the larger ones starting the middle of February, as the tower nears completion. The two cranes that are there now are 1280-ton-meter cranes (the weight the crane can theoretically lift 1 meter). A 900-ton-meter crane will dismantle and take down the two 1280 t/m cranes. Then a 380 t/m crane will be erected to take apart the 900 t/m crane. Then a 150 t/m crane will take down the 380 t/m one, and eventually a 60 t/m crane will take down the 150 t/m one. This last one will be taken apart and brought to the ground in the building's elevators.

Okay, now more pictures. These are the "later" pictures of the front of the building. In the pictures from a couple weeks ago, this was the open area in the front. Now you can see that they have put up horizontal beams with these white things on them. Trying to get a closer look, the white is paper that is wrapping what I can only imagine are clamps to hold the glass that will eventually go across that whole front section.

These last two are on the non-river side, and you can see the very bottom rings that go almost to the ground, and the fully-glassed side of the pavillion.

February 2014

Not a clear day at all (which isn't surprising in Shanghai) but we headed back across the river for our end-of-February pictures of the tower. I like this first picture, as you can see the three major Pudong skyscrapers all in a line, right to left, but both age and size. Just behind the Aurora building is the JinMao tower, built first, and is the shortest of the three. Next the "bottle opener" Shanghai World Financial Center, built next, and then the under-construction Shanghai Tower. It isn't yet completed and it is amazing how much taller it is compared to the SWFC. It is going to really stick out like a sore thumb in the skyline!.

I tried to again get close-up shots of what they are doing at the top, which seems different than the ring structures in the lower sections.

And for anyone who hadn't heard, there were two separate break-ins to the tower construction site. The first over Chinese New Year when two Russians broke into the construction site and scaled to the top, taking videos from cameras mounted on their heads. These are the same two guys who scaled the Great Pyramid of Giza last year (and then apologized). There are several articles on their exploits, including this one in cnn. You can also find their video there and on YouTube pretty easily. A bit later, a pair of Chinese also broke in. Right after that, they started installing bars around the top, and have put in an electrified fencing area as well.

March 2014

These we took on March 30th as the sun was going down. It is interesting in that while you can still see the tower clearly, you also get the nice lights and designs on the buildings. They are down to a single crane now, and are about 1/2 way done with the last major section of glass. We are still really interested to see how the top section and cap will go.

We will only have a couple more months of pictures before we leave.