Shanghai Tower, the world's second-tallest building, tops out 6 comments News: the topping-out ceremony for the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower, the world's second-tallest building, takes place in Shanghai tomorrow (Saturday). The 632 metre-high tower has now reached its full height and is second only to the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai , which measures 828 metres. The topping-out ceremony, to be held at the construction site in the Lujiazui development zone in Shanghai, will be attended by Gensler founder Art Gensler and senior figures from the Chinese government. The twisting form of the tower is the result of wind-tunnel tests and is designed to reduce wind load by 24% during typhoons. The 121-storey tower will be divided into nine vertical zones, with retail at the bottom and hotels, cultural facilities and observation decks at the top. The zones in between will contain offices. Shanghai Tower is due to open in 2014. It forms the centrepiece of the emerging Lujiazui high-rise district in Pudong, which is located on a bend of the Huangpu river opposite downtown Shanghai.

The building already towers over neighbouring buildings including the 421 metre-high, pagoda-shaped Jin Mao Tower by SOM, and the 492 metre-high Shanghai World Financial Center by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Work briefly started earlier this month on what would be the tallest building on earth - the 838 metre-high Sky City in Changsha in central China, which its developers believe they can build in just seven months . However construction was abruptly postponed due to issues with safety certificates and building permits . Here's some text about Shanghai Tower from Gensler: Shanghai Tower will anchor the city’s Lujiazui district, which has emerged as one of East Asia’s leading financial centers. Designed by a local team of Gensler architects to embody Shanghai’s rich culture, the 632-meter-high mixed-use building will complete the city’s super-highrise precinct. It is the most forward-looking of the three towers symbolizing Shanghai’s past, present, and future. The new tower takes inspiration from Shanghai’s tradition of parks and neighborhoods. Its curved façade and spiraling form symbolize the dynamic emergence of modern China.

By incorporating sustainable best practices, Shanghai Tower is at the forefront of a new generation of super-highrise towers, achieving the highest level of performance and offering unprecedented community access. Gensler’s vision for Shanghai Tower has taken tangible form after completion of the immense foundation. Soil conditions in Shanghai—a clay-based mixture typical of a river delta—meant supporting the tower on 831 rein- forced concrete bore piles sunk deep into the ground. For three days, a small army of workers assembled to complete the marathon, 60-hour continuous concrete pour. When the job was finished, more than 61,000 cubic meters of concrete had been used to create the six-meter-thick mat foundation. The tower’s scale and complexity have created so many “firsts” for China’s construction industry that more than 100 expert panels have been established to analyze every aspect of the design. Workers are busy building forms for the concrete core and erecting the gigantic composite supercolumns—measuring 5 x 4 meters at the base and reinforced with steel plates that weigh 145 metric tons each—that will provide structural support for the tower.

To carry the load of the trans- parent glass skin, Gensler designed an innovative curtain wall that is suspended from the mechanical floors above and stabilized by a system of hoop rings and struts. And the strategic division of the tower into nine vertical zones will supply the lifeblood of the building’s heating, cooling, water, and power throughout with less energy and at lower cost. Gensler won the Shanghai Tower project in an invited multi-stage competition among leading international architects. What secured the win were the tower’s design and performance, and Gensler’s commitment to China. To refine the tower’s shape, Gensler’s team used a series of wind tunnel tests to simulate the region’s greatest natural force, the typhoon. Results produced a structure and shape that reduce wind loads by 24 percent—ultimately yielding a savings of $58 million in construction costs. A simple structure, public spaces within the double façade, and sky gardens based on Shanghai’s traditional open courtyards will make Shanghai Tower an unrivaled asset for the Lujiazui district.

Read more China gives new twist to world's second tallest building China gives new twist to world's second tallest building Bill Savadove Share View photos The under-construction Shanghai Tower (bottom C), the Shanghai World Financial Center (L) and the Jin Mao Tower (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele) More Shanghai (AFP) - The world's second tallest building, Shanghai Tower, will soon open in the Chinese financial capital with a twist -- a 120-degree twist, to be exact. A softened triangular "outer skin" is literally twisted around a circular core, sending the glass and steel tower spiralling 632 metres (2,086 feet) into the grey sky above the city. State-backed developer Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co. views the modern design as a symbol of China's future, a super-tall building in the city's gleaming Pudong financial district, which did not even exist 25 years ago. People involved with the project said the building will open this summer, with office tenants moving in first, but the developer declined to comment.

"This twist is an iconic symbol of looking forward for the Chinese people," said Grant Uhlir, practice area leader and principal for Gensler, the US architecture firm whose design was chosen for the building which broke ground in 2008. "It's been referred to as a strand of DNA. It's also been referred to a place where the ground connects with the sky," he said. Although still dwarfed by the reigning champion Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 828 metres (2,732 feet), and with new challengers under construction, the $2.4 billion Shanghai Tower can still lay claim to a host of superlatives. Besides being the tallest double-facade building, the world's fastest elevators travelling 18 metres per second will whisk people up and down while the globe's second highest hotel will be located on the 84th to 110th floors. An estimated 16,000 to 18,000 people will pass through the Shanghai Tower every day.

The building will sway up to a metre (three feet) in high winds, with a 1,000-tonne "damper" weight near the top reducing the effect. - 'It has to be unique' - "When you do these iconic, super-tall buildings, it can't be a copy of something else. It has to be unique," said American chief architect Marshall Strabala, who participated in the project while at Gensler. Now the head of his own firm, he spent part of his three-decade career working on some of the world's tallest buildings including the Burj Khalifa. He said the double skin plays other roles besides pure design, providing insulation to keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter and reducing wind stress. "This building is a giant Thermos bottle, that's all it is," he said. But the vacuum flask metaphor masks the mind-numbing complexity involved in balancing the design, safety requirements, building codes and client demands that shaped the tower. Despite the futuristic look, concepts owing to Chinese culture are present.

A golden canopy at the base of the building was originally meant to be green, the colour of weathered copper, but the developer rejected the idea because in Chinese, the expression "wearing a green hat" means being a cuckold. "It's not a good thing. Gold is a colour of prosperity," Strabala said. A white stone structure dubbed the "River Wall" on the lower floors conceptually cuts the building into west and east, like Shanghai itself is divided into Puxi and Pudong on either side of the Huangpu River. "Pudong side is business, Puxi side is fun. The retail, restaurants (in the building) are on the fun Puxi side," Strabala said. The developer is expected to shun using floor numbers with the number four, which sounds like the Chinese word for death. Gensler says the building has 121 "occupied" floors, while the total number has been given as 127 or 128 storeys depending on how they are counted.

- 'Curse' of tall buildings - Office space will take up much of the 573,000-square-metre (6.2-million-square-foot) building, while the retail space is small compared to a shopping mall -- just four floors. The building's arrival on the Shanghai office market could potentially pull down rents and drive up the vacancy rate, analysts said. "It remains to be seen whether the pool of tenants currently in Pudong is large enough to fill the building or whether Shanghai Tower will need to start offering discounts to attract others," said Michael Stacy, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield's tenant advisory group in China. Property agents are quoting rental rates in a range of 9 to 16 yuan ($1.45 to $2.56) per square metre a day depending on location, but they say the developer is offering rent-free periods. Strabala believes the prestige of the address will draw tenants though he jokes about the "curse" of tall buildings, which seems to follow economic strife.

Workers broke ground on Shanghai Tower in November 2008, just weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which helped spark the global financial crisis, and it will open at a time when China's economy is slowing. Strabala, however, is not worried, stressing that recognition of the building as the world's second tallest will attract tenants. "This building will fill up because people will want to be here," he said. Reblog World's second-tallest building nears completion in Shanghai; second only to Dubai building World's second-tallest building nears completion in Shanghai; second only to Dubai building The Associated Press Share SHANGHAI - The world's second-tallest building is nearing completion in Shanghai's financial hub. The building will be China's tallest building. The final beam was hoisted to the top of the skyscraper and installed in a flag-waving ritual on Saturday. At 632 metres (2,073 feet), the Shanghai Tower in the city's Pudong district is the world's second-tallest building, surpassed only by Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which soars 829.8 metres (2,722 feet). Workers will now concentrate on the building's interior construction.

Once it is completed next year, the Shanghai Tower will have retail and office space, a luxury hotel and likely a museum. "I'm very proud," Wu Weiming, who helped installed the last beam, told reporters. Designed by U.S. architectural firm Gensler, the glass-and-steel, 121-story building takes on a transparent and spiral form. China's booming economy has fuelled a building frenzy, including some of the world's tallest buildings. The Shanghai Tower replaces the Shanghai World Financial Center — completed in 2008 — as the country's highest building. The Shanghai Tower is the last piece in a group of super-tall skyscrapers in Shanghai's Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, which includes the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower, both among the tallest in the world. And in the south-central city of Changsha, developers are in the midst of building Sky City, an 838-meter (2,749-foot) structure that would overtake Burj Khalifa. This summer, China also unveiled the world's largest building in terms of floor space in the western city of Chengdu. The New Century Global Center edged out the previous record-holder, the Dubai airport.

Reblog World's second-tallest building twists upward in Shanghai | The Japan Times SHARE SHANGHAI – The world’s second-tallest building, Shanghai Tower, will soon open in the Chinese financial capital with a twist — a 120-degree twist, to be exact. A triangular “outer skin” twists around a circular core, sending the glass-and-steel tower spiraling 632 meters (2,086 feet) into the sky. State-backed developer Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co. views the modern design as a symbol of China’s future, a supertall building in the city’s gleaming Pudong financial district, which did not even exist 25 years ago. People involved with the project said the building will open this summer, with office tenants moving in first. “This twist is an iconic symbol of looking forward for the Chinese people,” said Grant Uhlir, a practice area leader and principal for Gensler, the U.S. architecture firm whose design was chosen for the building, which broke ground in 2008. “It’s been referred to as a strand of DNA. It’s also been referred to a place where the ground connects with the sky,” he said.

Although still dwarfed by the reigning champion Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 828 meters (2,732 feet), and with new challengers under construction, the $2.4 billion Shanghai Tower can still lay claim to a host of superlatives. Besides being the tallest double-facade building, the world’s fastest elevators, traveling 18 meters per second, will whisk people up and down. The globe’s second-highest hotel will be located on the 84th to 110th floors. An estimated 16,000 to 18,000 people will pass through the Shanghai Tower every day. The building will sway up to a meter in high winds, with a 1,000-ton “damper” weight near the top reducing the effect. “When you do these iconic supertall buildings, it can’t be a copy of something else. It has to be unique,” said American chief architect Marshall Strabala, who participated in the project while at Gensler. Now the head of his own firm, he spent part of his three-decade career working on some of the world’s tallest buildings, including the Burj Khalifa.

He said the double skin plays roles besides pure design, providing insulation to keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter and reducing wind stress. “This building is a giant Thermos bottle, that’s all it is,” he said. But the vacuum-flask metaphor masks the mind-numbing complexity involved in balancing the design, safety requirements, building codes and client demands that shaped the tower. Despite the futuristic look, concepts owing to Chinese culture are present. A golden canopy at the base of the building was originally meant to be green, the color of weathered copper, but the developer rejected the idea because in Chinese, the expression “wearing a green hat” means being a cuckold. “Gold is a color of prosperity,” Strabala said. A white stone structure dubbed the “River Wall” on the lower floors conceptually cuts the building into west and east, like Shanghai itself is divided into Puxi and Pudong on either side of the Huangpu River. “Pudong side is business, Puxi side is fun. The retail, restaurants are on the fun, Puxi side,” Strabala said. The developer is expected to shun using floor numbers with the number four, which sounds like the Chinese word for death.

Gensler says the building has 121 “occupied” floors. The total number has been given as 127 or 128 stories, depending on how they are counted. Office space will take up much of the 573,000-square-meter (6.2-million-sq.-foot) building. The retail space is small compared to a shopping mall — just four floors. The building’s arrival on the Shanghai office market could potentially pull down rents and drive up the vacancy rate, analysts said. “It remains to be seen whether the pool of tenants currently in Pudong is large enough to fill the building or whether Shanghai Tower will need to start offering discounts to attract others,” said Michael Stacy, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s tenant advisory group in China. Property agents are quoting rental rates in a range of 9 to 16 yuan ($1.45 to $2.56) per square meter per day, depending on location, but they say the developer is offering rent-free periods. Strabala believes the prestige of the address will draw tenants, though he jokes about the “curse” of tall buildings, which seems to follow economic strife.

Workers broke ground on Shanghai Tower in November 2008, just weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which helped spark the global financial crisis, and it will open at a time when China’s economy is slowing. World's second-tallest building almost complete (+video) - CSMonitor.com World's second-tallest building almost complete (+video) Latest News Second-tallest building has topping-out ceremony in Shanghai. At 2,073 feet, the Shanghai Tower is second-tallest only to Dubai's 2,722-foot skyscraper. By Associated Press Save for later Saved A helicopter flies past the almost completed 125-floor Shanghai Tower while a final beam is being raised during a topping-out ceremony. According to Chinese media, the Shanghai Tower will be the world's second-tallest building, eventually reaching a height of 2,073 feet. AP View Caption of SHANGHAI — A topping-out ceremony was held Saturday for China 's tallest building in the financial hub of Shanghai when the final beam was hoisted to the top of the skyscraper and installed in a flag-waving ritual.

At 632 meters (2,073 feet), the Shanghai Tower in the city's Pudong district is the world's second-tallest building, surpassed only by Dubai 's Burj Khalifa , which soars 829.8 meters (2,722 feet). After the ceremony, workers will move onto the building's interior construction. Once it is completed next year, the Shanghai Tower will have retail and office space, a luxury hotel and likely a museum. Photos of the Day Photos of the weekend Designed by U.S. architectural firm Gensler, the glass-and-steel, 121-story building takes on a transparent and spiral form. China's booming economy has fuelled a building frenzy, including some of the world's tallest buildings. TheShanghai Tower replaces the Shanghai World Financial Center — completed in 2008 — as the country's highest building. The Shanghai Tower is the last piece in a group of super-tall skyscrapers in Shanghai's Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, which includes the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower, both among the tallest in the world.

And in the south-central city of Changsha, developers are in the midst of building Sky City, an 838-meter (2,749-foot) structure that would overtake Burj Khalifa. This summer, China also unveiled the world's largest building in terms of floor space in the western city of Chengdu. The New Century Global Center edged out the previous record-holder, the Dubai airport. Next up Get the Monitor stories you care about delivered to your inbox. Daily WORLD'S 2ND-TALLEST BUILDING NEARS COMPLETION WORLD'S 2ND-TALLEST BUILDING NEARS COMPLETION August 13, 2013 - Updated: August 13, 2013 A topping-out ceremony was held for China's tallest building in the financial hub of Shanghai when the final beam was hoisted to the top of the skyscraper and installed in a flag-waving ritual. At 632 metres, the Shanghai Tower in the city's Pudong district is the world's second-tallest building, surpassed only by Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which soars 829.8 metres. After the ceremony, workers will move onto the building's interior construction.

Once it is completed next year, the Shanghai Tower will have retail and office space, a luxury hotel and likely a museum. Designed by U.S. architectural firm Gensler, the glass-and-steel, 121-storey building takes on a transparent and spiral form. China's booming economy has fuelled a building frenzy, including some of the world's tallest buildings. The Shanghai Tower replaces the Shanghai World Financial Center — completed in 2008 — as the country's highest building. The Shanghai Tower is the last piece in a group of super-tall skyscrapers in Shanghai's Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, which includes the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower, both among the tallest in the world. And in the south-central city of Changsha, developers are in the midst of building Sky City, an 838-metre structure that would overtake Burj Khalifa. This summer, China also unveiled the world's largest building in terms of floor space in the western city of Chengdu. The New Century Global Center edged out the previous record-holder, the Dubai airport.

A Look Inside Shanghai Tower, Now the World’s 2nd Tallest Building – Real Estate Matters Development , International Real Estate A Look Inside Shanghai Tower, Now the World’s 2nd Tallest Building Shanghai Tower, now the second tallest building in the world, will officially be topped-out later this week. The 127-story structure is being built in Shanghai’s Pudong district, where several other skyscrapers have gone up in recent years, such as the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower . When completed in 2014, Shanghai Tower will boast over 4 million s.f. of above grade space and an additional 1.5 million s.f. below grade. The tower was designed by U.S. architecture firm Gensler , which beat out eight other firms in an international design competition. The developer is the Shanghai Tower Construction & Development Co., a consortium made up of a government-based developer, a public landowner, and a construction group. CBRE has been selected to provide property management services for the tower. 106 elevators made by Mitsubishi will help funnel visitors to the many office, hotel, retail, and entertainment venues that will be housed within the tower.

The elevators in the building will include some of the world’s fastest, traveling at a speed of 59 ft. per second. There will be four sets of double-deck elevators traveling between the ground floor and the hotel lobby on the 101st floor (these will also travel at a world record speed for their type). Rounding out the tower’s impressive elevator system will be an emergency elevator which will become the world’s longest-traveling elevator, operating between the 121st floor all the way down to the 3rd basement level (a distance of almost 1,900 feet). The tower features a unique “dual-skin” exterior, with the circular building wrapped in a second, exterior skin, which spirals around it. The varying angles of the second skin create 21 landscaped public atriums, each 12 to 14 stories high, which will feature retail and meeting spaces with sweeping views of the city (see image below). The dual-skin feature of the structure is important not only aesthetically but also environmentally and financially.

According to Gensler regional managing principal Dan Winey, the outer skin acts like a coat, tempering the space; warm air will be drawn from the occupied spaces into the atrium, where a chimney effect allows the heat to escape. Additionally, the aerodynamics of the spiral shape significantly reduce the wind load on the building, allowing designers to use about one-third less structural steel than in a conventional building. Other environmental features at Shanghai Tower include wind turbines at the upper levels of the building that will generate 54,000 kWh of energy per year, enough to power the exterior lighting of the building plus some additional areas. State of the art water management practices include a funnel-shaped parapet that channels rainwater into large collection tanks for use in the building’s heating and cooling systems. The tower will have a direct link to the Shanghai subway system, and it is anticipated that the vast majority of the building’s 20,000 occupants and visitors will arrive by public transit. Shanghai Tower’s unique dual-skin creates several large atriums which will feature landscaping, meeting space, retail, and great views.

(Image: Gensler) Shanghai Tower will be a symbol for China’s economic rise, sustainable skyscraper design, and technological advances in architectural design and construction. In an interview with InHabitat, Gensler architect Chris Chan noted that “more so than ever in architecture and construction, we are realizing great advances in the capabilities of advanced computer software and as such can bring to life our most innovative ideas, translating them into real buildings. Shanghai Tower is clearly one of these projects.” The soaring spiral design also speaks to the China’s culture and economic aspirations. According to Mr. Winey, “when you’re designing in China, symbolically, what you’re doing becomes culturally important. [Shanghai Tower] is emerging from the earth, tapering, and reaching toward the heavens. In China, the idea of connecting heaven and earth is really important.” Rendering of the under-construction Shanghai Tower (left), with the already built Jin Mao and Shanghai World Financial Center towers (image: Gensler) Shanghai Hotels - Best Hotels in Shanghai - Forbes Travel Guide VIEW DETAILS Overview Shanghai is a city with two faces. On one side is the older but refined Puxi district, home to the city's Art Deco buildings and classic Chinese gardens.

Then there's the young Pudong side, with its eye-popping, out-of-this-world skyscrapers. The beautiful waterfront Bund and Huangpu River join the two halves (after all, Shanghai means "on the sea"). Together, they make the coastal city a powerhouse. While Shanghai saw its heyday in the 1930s, events like the 2010 World Expo have given China's largest city another chance to put its best face forward: Street food vendors aren't far from fine dining restaurants, and artisans huddle in stalls crafting souvenirs in the shadow of massive luxury malls. Shanghai manages to maintain an impressive mix of the traditional and the cosmopolitan. Filter by Category China Gives New Twist to World's 2nd Tallest Building China Gives New Twist to World's 2nd Tallest Building World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: June 21, 2015 10:19 IST EMAIL COMMENTS The world's second tallest building, Shanghai tower, China (AFP Photo) Shanghai: The world's second tallest building, Shanghai Tower, will soon open in the Chinese financial capital with a twist a 120 degree twist, to be exact.

A softened triangular "outer skin" is literally twisted around a circular core, sending the glass and steel tower spiralling 632 metres (2,086 feet) into the grey sky above the city. State-backed developer Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co. views the modern design as a symbol of China's future, a super-tall building in the city's gleaming Pudong financial district, which did not even exist 25 years ago. People involved with the project said the building will open this summer, with office tenants moving in first, but the developer declined to comment. "This twist is an iconic symbol of looking forward for the Chinese people," said Grant Uhlir, practice area leader and principal for Gensler, the US architecture firm whose design was chosen for the building which broke ground in 2008. "It's been referred to as a strand of DNA. It's also been referred to a place where the ground connects with the sky," he said.

Although still dwarfed by the reigning champion Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 828 metres (2,732 feet), and with new challengers under construction, the $2.4 billion Shanghai Tower can still lay claim to a host of superlatives. Besides being the tallest double-facade building, the world's fastest elevators travelling 18 metres per second will whisk people up and down while the globe's second highest hotel will be located on the 84th to 110th floors. An estimated 16,000 to 18,000 people will pass through the Shanghai Tower every day. The building will sway up to a metre (three feet) in high winds, with a 1,000-tonne "damper" weight near the top reducing the effect. 'It has to be unique' "When you do these iconic, super-tall buildings, it can't be a copy of something else. It has to be unique," said American chief architect Marshall Strabala, who participated in the project while at Gensler.

Now the head of his own firm, he spent part of his three-decade career working on some of the world's tallest buildings including the Burj Khalifa. He said the double skin plays other roles besides pure design, providing insulation to keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter and reducing wind stress. "This building is a giant Thermos bottle, that's all it is," he said. But the vacuum flask metaphor masks the mind-numbing complexity involved in balancing the design, safety requirements, building codes and client demands that shaped the tower. Despite the futuristic look, concepts owing to Chinese culture are present. A golden canopy at the base of the building was originally meant to be green, the colour of weathered copper, but the developer rejected the idea because in Chinese, the expression "wearing a green hat" means being a cuckold. "It's not a good thing. Gold is a colour of prosperity," Strabala said. A white stone structure dubbed the "River Wall" on the lower floors conceptually cuts the building into west and east, like Shanghai itself is divided into Puxi and Pudong on either side of the Huangpu River. "Pudong side is business, Puxi side is fun.

The retail, restaurants (in the building) are on the fun Puxi side," Strabala said. The developer is expected to shun using floor numbers with the number four, which sounds like the Chinese word for death. Gensler says the building has 121 "occupied" floors, while the total number has been given as 127 or 128 storeys depending on how they are counted. 'Curse' of tall buildings Office space will take up much of the 573,000-square-metre (6.2-million-square-foot) building, while the retail space is small compared to a shopping mall -- just four floors. The building's arrival on the Shanghai office market could potentially pull down rents and drive up the vacancy rate, analysts said. "It remains to be seen whether the pool of tenants currently in Pudong is large enough to fill the building or whether Shanghai Tower will need to start offering discounts to attract others," said Michael Stacy, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield's tenant advisory group in China.

Property agents are quoting rental rates in a range of 9 to 16 yuan ($1.45 to $2.56) per square metre a day depending on location, but they say the developer is offering rent-free periods. Strabala believes the prestige of the address will draw tenants though he jokes about the "curse" of tall buildings, which seems to follow economic strife. Workers broke ground on Shanghai Tower in November 2008, just weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which helped spark the global financial crisis, and it will open at a time when China's economy is slowing. Strabala, however, is not worried, stressing that recognition of the building as the world's second tallest will attract tenants. "This building will fill up because people will want to be here," he said. Park Hyatt, Shanghai: The World’s Tallest Hotel | Travel + Leisure Park Hyatt, Shanghai: The World’s Tallest Hotel Park Hyatt, Shanghai: The World’s Tallest Hotel By Karrie Jacobs © Andrew Rowat Far above the madding crowds of Shanghai, the new Park Hyatt—currently the tallest hotel in the world—delivers serenity.

Eighty-seven stories above Shanghai, the city on the other side of the glass obscured by fog, I am enjoying a moment of perfect peace. I am not in the Park Hyatt’s spa, with its fragrant treatment rooms and long, shimmery infinity pool. Nor am I participating in the hotel’s daily 6:30 a.m. tai chi class. I am not, at the moment, even seeking serenity. I am simply eating breakfast. Down below, a city of more than 18 million is muscling its way into the 21st century in a frenzy of construction noise, exhaust fumes, and pure adrenaline. But up here, on the highest floors of what is either the world’s second- or third-tallest building, depending on how you do the math, all I can hear is music, a meandering piano riff.

Sometimes it sounds like Erik Satie and other times I think it must be of Chinese origin—I later learn that it was custom-composed for this exact circumstance by a firm out of Hong Kong—and what I see directly in front of me is a still life by Cézanne: hydrangeas in a cloisonné vase, salt and pepper in silvery orbs, a row of precious jam jars, all arrayed on a textured linen tablecloth. There’s something about the extraordinary beauty and tranquillity of this ordinary moment that I want to hold on to. What I’m rediscovering in this newly opened, relatively small hotel—it has only 174 rooms—situated on floors 79 to 93 of the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) (only a multilevel public observation deck is above it) are the exquisite pleasures of the tall building. As the hotel’s general manager, Christophe Sadones, puts it: “You feel like you’re in a protected environment, like you’re floating.” The wonderful free-floating sensation afforded by very tall buildings was, of course, undermined by the tragic demise of the World Trade Center. Yet the desire to build tall has never been greater.

During my stay at the Park Hyatt Shanghai, I hear news of two new “world’s tallest” projects: one in Dubai (home of the current record holder) and one in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, that will supposedly be more than a half-mile tall. The thing that distinguishes this new generation of supertowers is that they’re mostly topped with luxurious condominiums and hotels rather than corporate offices. Record-shattering high-rises are no longer symbols of state or corporate power, but of the marriage of new engineering know-how with ever more audacious real estate schemes. Hoteliers have realized that the sheer height of these towers provides guests with exactly the kind of respite from the world that is the stock in trade of luxury hotels. Best High-Altitude Hotels To be honest, the Park Hyatt’s setup goes against everything I believe about cities and how I like to experience them. As a rule, I prefer to stay in hotels where the life of the city is all around me and I can easily walk wherever I need to go. I seek total immersion.

The SWFC, however, is located in the Lujiazui financial district of Shanghai’s Pudong, a cluster of high-rises built on what, prior to the 1990’s, were rice paddies situated on the erstwhile “wrong” side of the Huangpu River. Walkable is not the word I’d use to describe this newly minted neighborhood. The notion that pedestrians have the right of way has not yet arrived in China, and Pudong’s broad boulevards are a challenge to cross. Billboards promise the future construction of a pedestrian walkway; it looks strangely like a particle accelerator, a giant elevated ring that will connect the area’s major buildings. At the moment, however, walkers have to live by their wits. In fact, the more I plunge into Shanghai, the more I understand the value of my 80-story buffer zone. For instance, I visit the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall in People’s Square, the heart of the city, to see an immense, ballroom-size model—supposedly the world’s largest—of what the city is supposed to look like when the dust settles sometime around 2020.

The expanse of miniature buildings is impressive, but it’s nothing compared to the view from my room. The hotel sits atop a smoke-colored glass tower developed by the Japanese real estate mogul Minoru Mori, best known for Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills complex. Like Tokyo’s Mori Tower—famously topped with an art museum—the SWFC was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, of New York. And like the 88-story Jin Mao Tower, a supersize Modernist pagoda across the street, it was designed back in the 1990’s. A nosedive in the Japanese economy delayed the project for five years. During that period, the Grand Hyatt atop the Jin Mao, known for its vertiginous central atrium, held the title of the world’s tallest hotel—until the Park Hyatt Shanghai opened for business in September 2008. A field trip to the Grand Hyatt demonstrates to me that altitude does not automatically guarantee serenity. The Park Hyatt’s unexpected calm is the unique product of an unusually harmonious collaboration between the hotel’s designers and its management.

First there’s the architect William Pedersen, who understood early on that Pudong would be full of “competitive and cacophonous” towers. “We wanted our building to be as serene as possible,” he tells me. Then came the New York–based Chinese-American interior designer Tony Chi. He brought to the project an admiration for Pedersen’s cool geometry and an offbeat definition of luxury. “I wanted the place to give me silence,” he says. “That was the only word in my mind. Wow, what a luxury. If you ask me what defines luxury in New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai…it’s silence.” T+L 500: The World’s Best Hotels Like Philip Johnson’s Glass House, where the décor is what you see through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Park Hyatt is ringed by spectacular views. Chi didn’t need to dazzle guests with flashy interiors. Instead he created a neutral palette—visual silence. The ground-floor entry to the hotel, with its 52-foot-high ceilings and brown or white walls, is strikingly monastic. There’s no background music, just a cool hush.

In the hotel’s Living Room bar, where you can drink tea or wine, the décor is dominated by a view of the Jin Mao Tower and the landmark Pearl Television Tower (which looks like it came from a special disco-era Tinkertoy set), and beyond, the Bund. The furniture consists of simple chairs upholstered in taupe punctuated by a single sculpture by Xie Aige, a young Chinese artist. Other artworks, mostly by emerging Chinese artists, are strategically sprinkled throughout the hotel. Although there have been plenty of skyscraper hotels in the United States and other parts of the world—the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle in New York City comes to mind—the competition for the title of world’s tallest hotel is largely an Asian and Middle Eastern phenomenon. Today, real estate practice demands that developers squeeze the maximum amount of value out of every piece of land. Take, for example, the freestanding Ritz-Carlton that for a mere 14 years stood in Hong Kong’s Central district, near the old Star Ferry pier. In 2008, it was shuttered to make way for an office development. A new Ritz-Carlton will open atop a 118-story tower in Kowloon designed by KPF.

When it debuts in 2010, the Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong will become—you guessed it—the world’s tallest hotel. Best High-Altitude Hotels Chi, of all people, has misgivings about the phenomenon. “Putting a hotel up top like a cherry on a cake—disengaging with the urban environment,” he reflects, “I sort of disagree with that.” Chi cites New York landmarks like the Plaza and the Waldorf as he waxes nostalgic about how these older hotels were built not just for their resident guests, but as public gathering places: “Once upon a time, people would come into a hotel and have afternoon tea on a Sunday,” he says. What’s interesting, though, is that while the new skyscraper hotels have less presence on the street, the public can still find them. The Park Hyatt’s afternoon tea service, for example, has become popular for locals, undeterred by the 87-story elevator ride. The Living Room was full on a Friday afternoon, with a lively Shanghainese crowd eating little tea cakes off tiered silver trays, drinking pots of Longjing tea, and snapping photos out the windows.

Maybe when Chi was talking about disengagement from the urban environment, he was really talking about himself. He asks me if I, during my stay in Shanghai, ever pushed the bedside button that lowers the shades. Well, no, I never did. I didn’t want to lose my boffo view for a second, even when I was sleeping. Chi, speaking like a consummate interior designer, describes the fabulous translucent-scrim effect created when the shades are drawn. He tells me that when he stays in the hotel, he exaggerates the cocoon feeling by immediately lowering them. “I isolate myself from the world,” Chi says. “That makes me very happy.” In response, I tell him about one of my happiest moments in the hotel. After a glorious 90-minute massage—the Complete Reset, billed as a cure for jet lag—I stood at the window of the treatment room with my massage therapist and got my first view of Shanghai after dark. All the buildings were lit in Technicolor, with barges on the Huangpu carrying giant video screens, looking like something out of Blade Runner. Feeling utterly reset, and more than a little stoned, I thought the panorama was the most glorious thing I’d ever seen.

No way was I lowering the shades. Park Hyatt Shanghai; 100 Century Ave.; 800/233-1234; parkhyatt.com ; doubles from $732.

Question: In what city would you find the district of Pudong, home to the world's second tallest building?
Answer: Shanghai