There are tall buildings. And then there is the Shanghai Tower.
Standing at 632 metres above Lujiazui, it doesn’t just dominate the Shanghai skyline — it redefines what a building can be. It twists. It breathes. It powers itself. It houses a hotel so high that its guests sleep above the clouds. And it gets you to the top faster than Usain Bolt can run.
If you live in Shanghai — or you’re considering making it your home — the Shanghai Tower is one of those landmarks you’ll see every day from across the city. Here’s the story behind it. Fair warning: it gets weird in the best possible way.
The Basics (That Aren’t Basic At All)
#1. It’s the tallest building in China — and third in the world. At 632 metres (2,073 feet), the Shanghai Tower is China’s tallest structure and ranks third globally, behind only the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (828m) and the Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur (678m). For six years after its 2015 completion, it held the title of second-tallest in the world — until Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 edged it out in 2021.
#2. It’s not one building. It’s nine buildings stacked on top of each other. The tower is structured as nine cylindrical “zones,” each effectively its own vertical neighbourhood, stacked one on top of the other and encased in that sweeping glass façade. Each zone has its own sky lobby, gardens, cafés, shops, and community spaces. It’s not a skyscraper — it’s a vertical city.
#3. It took 7 years and 60,000 cubic metres of concrete to build. Construction began on 29 November 2008 and was completed in September 2015. Pouring the concrete foundation alone took 63 consecutive hours, using 450 mixer trucks and eight pumping stations running simultaneously across the city. The foundation mat is six metres thick, sitting on 947 bore piles driven deep into Shanghai’s soft alluvial ground.
#4. Shanghai Tower cost $2.4 billion to build. Owned by the Shanghai city government, the project was funded through a combination of state investment, bank loans, and shareholders. Every square metre of that investment shows.
The Twist That Changed Everything
#5. The building rotates 120 degrees as it rises — and that’s not just for looks. The Shanghai Tower’s most immediately striking feature is its corkscrew shape. As the building climbs from ground to crown, the outer glass façade completes a full 120-degree rotation. It looks extraordinary. But the twist isn’t aesthetic — it’s structural genius.
#6. The twist reduces wind load by 24% — saving $58 million in steel. Shanghai sits in a typhoon-prone region. At 632 metres, the wind forces on a conventional rectangular building would be enormous. Gensler’s twisting design, which was verified through extensive wind tunnel testing simulating full typhoon-strength gusts, reduces the wind load hitting the building by approximately 24%. That reduction meant the tower needed 25% less structural steel than a conventional design of the same height — saving an estimated $58 million (around ¥389 million) in construction materials alone.
#7. The design was inspired by a Chinese dragon. Lead architect Jun Xia at Gensler drew the spiral form partly from the imagery of a Chinese dragon ascending into the sky — a symbol of strength, prosperity, and upward momentum. It’s a building that tells a story before you even enter it.
#8. The outer façade hangs from above, not from below. The outer glass skin — that sweeping, twisting second layer — is structurally independent from the inner building. Rather than sitting on floor plates, it is suspended from above, hanging downward like a curtain. It contains more than 20,000 curtain wall panels, including 7,000 unique bespoke shapes. No two panels are exactly alike.
The Elevator That Broke the World Record
#9. The elevator gets you to floor 118 in 55 seconds. The Shanghai Tower has 106 elevators in total. The three high-speed shuttle elevators that carry visitors to the observation deck are the ones that make headlines. They travel at 20.5 metres per second — that’s 73.8 kilometres per hour. From the basement (B2) to the 118th floor observation deck at 546 metres, in 55 seconds.
#10. That’s faster than Usain Bolt — but slower than a cheetah. When the record was set, Mitsubishi Electric (who manufactured the elevators) put the speed in perspective: 20.5 m/s is faster than Usain Bolt’s world-record sprint speed of about 12.4 m/s — but still comfortably slower than a cheetah at around 30 m/s. So: faster than the fastest human alive. Slower than a big cat. Somewhere in between is where you’ll be eating your breakfast in the elevator.
#11. The elevator also holds the world record for the furthest-traveling single lift. At a total travel distance of 578.5 metres per trip, the Shanghai Tower’s elevators surpassed the previous record held by the Burj Khalifa. Three Guinness World Records in one building: world’s fastest elevator, tallest elevator in a building, and fastest double-deck elevator — all at once.
#12. A coin can stand upright inside the elevator while it’s moving. At those speeds, you might expect a stomach-lurching, ear-popping experience. Instead, the ride is famously smooth. A sophisticated air pressure adjustment system prevents ears from popping and eliminates the sensation of G-force. The ride is so stable that visitors report being able to balance a coin on its edge inside the cabin during the full ascent.
The Greenest Skyscraper on Earth
#13. The building has a second skin — and it saves energy like a thermos flask. Between the inner building and the outer twisting glass façade lies a gap — a buffer zone of air. In winter, this trapped air warms up and insulates the building, reducing heating costs. In summer, it dissipates heat before it reaches the interior, reducing cooling costs. The result is a reduction in energy consumption of up to 50% compared to a building without the double skin. It works like a thermos: holding warmth in when cold outside, keeping heat out when warm.
#14. 270 wind turbines on the roof generate electricity for the building’s lights. Built into the parapet beneath the crown are 270 vertical-axis wind turbines. At 632 metres, the wind is never far away. These turbines generate on-site power specifically for the external lighting of the upper floors — a detail so elegant it almost seems too good to be true.
#15. It recycles 235,000 cubic metres of water every year. The Shanghai Tower collects rainwater and recycles grey water for use in landscaping and building operations. Total annual water recycling: 235,000 cubic metres — roughly equivalent to 94 Olympic swimming pools.
#16. It incorporates 43 green technologies — and reduced its carbon footprint by 34,000 tonnes a year. The combination of renewable systems, smart sensors, variable air conditioning, carbon monoxide detectors that automatically activate garage fans, and the double-skin façade together reduce the building’s annual carbon footprint by 34,000 tonnes. When it received LEED Platinum certification, it was the tallest and largest LEED-CS Platinum certified building in the world — a title it held from 2016 to 2025.
Life Inside the Tower
#17. There’s a hotel on the top floors — 565 metres above ground. The J Hotel Shanghai Tower, which opened in June 2021 and is operated by Jin Jiang International, occupies the topmost floors of the tower with 165 rooms. According to CNN, it became the “highest hotel in the world” upon opening. Guests sleeping in the upper rooms are over 565 metres above street level. The views at sunrise are, by all accounts, otherworldly.
#18. There’s a world-record swimming pool on the 84th floor. Part of the building’s luxury hotel facilities, the swimming pool sits on the 84th floor, 393 metres above ground — one of the highest hotel pools on Earth. The view from the pool deck extends across the entire Lujiazui skyline and beyond to the Bund. Swimming there is, presumably, either the most relaxing experience of your life or the most terrifying, depending on your relationship with heights.
#19. Up to 16,000 people work or visit inside the tower on any given day. The tower’s total floor area is approximately 578,000 square metres — the footprint of the base alone is equivalent to 4.5 standard football fields. On a typical day, the building hosts up to 16,000 people across its offices, hotels, shops, restaurants, and observation decks.
#20. There’s a sky post office on the 118th floor. At the observation deck, visitors can write and send a postcard from the world’s highest post office — 546 metres above Shanghai’s streets. The postcards are stamped and mailed from the tower. It’s a detail that perfectly captures the Shanghai Tower’s ambition to be not just a building, but an experience.
The Stunt That Went Viral
#21. In 2014, two Russian climbers illegally scaled it to the very top — and filmed it. In February 2014, before the building was even completed, a pair of Russian urban climbers broke into the tower after midnight and made their way to the very pinnacle — the pointed crown above the 128th floor. They filmed the entire climb. The resulting video, which shows them casually perched above the clouds with all of Shanghai spread out beneath them at night, has been viewed nearly 47 million times on YouTube. It remains one of the most-watched urban exploration videos ever made. It is also, needless to say, not something to attempt.
The Tower in Context: The Lujiazui “Big Three”
The Shanghai Tower doesn’t stand alone. It is the tallest of three adjacent supertall skyscrapers in Lujiazui — the only place in the world where three such towers stand side by side:
| Tower | Height | Completed | Notable For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai Tower | 632m | 2015 | Tallest in China, world’s third tallest |
| Shanghai World Financial Center | 492m | 2008 | The “bottle opener” — famous rooftop opening |
| Jin Mao Tower | 420m | 1998 | Classic Art Deco-inspired design; 555-room Grand Hyatt |
Together, they form one of the most dramatic skylines on Earth — visible on a clear day from across the river on the Bund, and from neighbourhood rooftops all the way to Old Xuhui and Jing’an on the other side of the river.
How to Visit the Shanghai Tower
Observation Deck: The “Top of Shanghai” observatory is located on floors 118–121. Floor 121, at 562 metres, is currently the world’s highest observation deck — taller than the Burj Khalifa’s. The 360-degree views take in the Bund, the Huangpu River, the full Lujiazui skyline, and on the clearest days, all the way to the mountains beyond the city.
Tickets: Approximately ¥180 per adult (around $25 USD). Discount tickets are occasionally available — notably during China Tourism Day (around May 19), when 50% discounts have been offered.
Getting There: Metro Line 2, Lujiazui Station. The tower is at No. 501 Yincheng Middle Road, Pudong.
Best time to visit: Weekday mornings for shortest queues. On clear winter days, visibility can extend 60–70 km. Rainy or heavily overcast days are a gamble — at 546 metres, you may literally be inside a cloud.
Night visits: The city lights are extraordinary from the observation deck after dark, and the Lujiazui towers illuminate dramatically. Queues are longer at night but the experience is worth it for the light show across the skyline.
From the Tower to Your Shanghai Home
The Shanghai Tower is in Pudong — the gleaming, modern financial district on the east bank of the Huangpu. From the observation deck on a clear day, you can look across the river and see the tree-lined streets of Old Xuhui and Jing’an on the western bank — quieter, more residential, and home to some of the most beautiful lane houses and expat-friendly compounds in the city.
If you’re relocating to Shanghai and trying to decide which side of the river to call home, that view from floor 118 tells the story better than any map could: the dramatic, vertical ambition of Pudong on one side; the charming, human-scaled warmth of Puxi on the other.
We help expats find their home, especially in Old Xuhui (FFC) and Jing’an. Get in touch with Tomas — we’d love to help you find yours.
Sources: Gensler Architecture, Wikipedia, Institution of Civil Engineers, Guinness World Records, Shanghai Municipal Government, Travel China Guide. Observation deck ticket prices correct as of 2026 — verify directly before visiting.
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