Shanghai World Financial Center
The Shanghai World Financial Center, a 101 story, 492-meter (1,614.2 ft) tall skyscraper is officially the second tallest building in the world behind the Taipei 101. The building is located in Pudong New Area in Shanghai, China near the Jin Mao Tower in the heart of Shanghai's financial district. It is a mixed-use tower, consisting of hotels, observation decks, office space, conference rooms, and ground floor shopping malls. The 174-room Park Hyatt Shanghai inside the Shanghai World Financial Centre is the world's highest hotel.
Construction on the building began in August 1997, and it was completed and opened in August 2008. The design was by the architectural firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox, engineering was by Leslie E. Robertson Associates and the main contractors were Shanghai Construction Group and China State Construction Engineering Corporation. The developer for the building was Mori Building Co. A consortium that included over 36 international corporations, most of which were insurance companies, banking corporations, and developers from Japan, including Mori Building Co., funded the project at price tag of $850 million. Construction was halted in the late 1990s due to the financial crisis and Asia and the building also suffered a fire in August 2007, although damage was minimal.
Shanghai World Financial Center was originally planned to become the world's tallest building during its original design in 1997 to surpass Malaysia's Petronas Towers. Construction was halted in the late 1990s due to the Asian financial crisis, and when construction resumed in 2003, Taiwan's 508-meter Taipei 101 was in the works. The plans were changed but because the foundation was already complete and meant to only support a 460 meter building, the plans to become the tallest building had to be scrapped. Taipei 101 is 16 meters taller than the Shanghai World Financial Center, but it is due to its spire. Measuring by roof height the Shanghai World Financial Center is taller than the Taipei 101 by 44 meters.
Shanghai World Financial Center features three underground floors of parking, a conference center and shops on the first five floors, office space on floors 7 through 77, and a 174-room Park Hyatt Shanghai on floors 79 through 93, and observation decks on the 94th, 97th and 100th floors. The observation deck on the 100th floor is the world's highest observation deck. The building can hold 12,000 people.
To reduce sway of the building during earthquakes and windstorms, the building has two mass dampers right below the observation floors. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, measures were taken to protect the building from plane crashes and other disasters. These measures included adding two external elevators and twelve fireproof areas for refugees and increased construction costs by $200 million.
The building's most distinctive architectural feature is the aperture at the building's peak, which has a trapezoidal shape resembling a bottle opener. It was originally a circular shape but was changed after the government of China objected, stating that the circular hole resembled the rising sun on the Japanese flag.