On a gorgeous sunny morning, as I get ready to go for a walk along the seawall, it is terrifying to see how some people see the future of our cities.
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The Shanghai Tower is a super tall skyscraper under construction in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. Construction work on the tower began in November 2008. Upon its completion in 2014, the building will stand approximately 632 metres (2,073 ft) high and will have 121 stories, with a total floor area of 380,000 m2 (4,090,000 sq ft). The Shanghai Tower is the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world, surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.
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UPDATE: Here’s John Graham’s comment and picture, brought up from below:
Some context: the tower sits in an area of Pudong that has virtually no services at street level and nothing you could walk to, so there’s good reason to build community into the building because there’s nothing else around. Here’s a photograph with the tower under construction in the background:
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Each time I go to Shanghai I ride to the top of “the world’s second tallest building”, and each time it’s a different building — the Jin Mao tower, then the World Trade Centre, and when I go next time it will be this one. And every time the streetscape gets worse because there’s nothing happening except traffic and construction.
But here’s the irony: the people who work in the buildings almost uniformly come from low apartment buildings in small towns or villages teeming with street life, right down to the guys sitting beside the road mending zippers while you wait. This kind of building is even more foreign to them than it is to us. In fact, when I took my translator up to the top of the WTC building, she was petrified — not because of the height but because she had never ridden in an elevator before.
That makes Blade Runner city seems like a paragon of social justice and sustainability in comparison.
ouch! shanghai: “suffering under the burden of 23 million people” – looks like it isn’t the people that are the problem, its the cars.
That’s funny. The Shanghai Auto Show is now the largest in the world, 400,000 square meters of space. With sales around 25 million a year it’s no wonder all the companies are there. Mercedes hired Gregor Robertson’s girlfriend Wanting Q to sing at their booth. She’s very popular in China and Mercedes knows that she will sell cars. The competition is tough from Audi, who supply most of the business and government vehicles and BMW, as well as the massive VW factories. 2,000 exhibitors and almost a million visitors. The new facility is stunning.
http://en.chiconline.com.cn/upload/201407/07/201407071002499504.jpg
Fun pic here, http://ninatrentmann.com/tag/dieter-zetsche/
You can chat about it when they’re next over to Cortes.
Here’s Wanting
https://ninatrentmanndotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/p1060176.jpg
Someone once said the future is us….I think it was in the Pogo comic strip. Turning front lawns into balconies has taken a huge step. Whether its forward, backward or sideways not sure. But the champion of front lawns, the US, seems to be in decline.
Some context: the tower sits in an area of Pudong that has virtually no services at street level and nothing you could walk to, so there’s good reason to build community into the building because there’s nothing else around. Here’s a link to a photograph with the tower under construction in the background :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tlxjxs5l2b9h9c5/Pudong.tiff?dl=0
Each time I go to Shanghai I ride to the top of “the world’s second tallest building”, and each time it’s a different building — the Jin Mao tower, then the World Trade Centre, and when I go next time it will be this one. And every time the streetscape gets worse because there’s nothing happening except traffic and construction.
But here’s the irony: the people who work in the buildings almost uniformly come from low apartment buildings in small towns or villages teeming with street life, right down to the guys sitting beside the road mending zippers while you wait. This kind of building is even more foreign to them than it is to us. In fact, when I took my translator up to the top of the WTC building, she was petrified — not because of the height but because she had never ridden in an elevator before.
Here are some amazing images of this building and an even more amazing video of some crazy guys that sneaked in and climbed to the very top of the top crane.
http://www.fubiz.net/en/2014/02/18/urban-ninjas-climb-shanghai-tower/
Rather tiresome to listen to people’s value judgements on how others are building cities. The reality is that this tower is better on many ways than much of our region. People will be able to get around by walking or using electric elevators instead of driving. Much better in those respects than the single family neighbourhoods. I get it that is not everyone’s ideal but at least respect people’s right to live and work how they want especially when the environmental impact is likely less than other forms of development.
Those elevators will be fun. Feel like going for a drive? Take an elevator down to the 1,800 car three storey garage. The elevators are going to move you at over 60 kmh. By the time you’ve found your car and slowly made your way to an exit and you’re heading out to the road it’s nearly lunchtime. Oops, forgot my phone, have to go back up to my 109th floor room. The day is shot!
You can’t grow your own food in one of these vertically stacked cubicals. And if the power goes out you’re royally screwed. Not very green.
Vertical walled compound.
I think time will tell whether the Shanghai Tower is successful or not. I have visited that area of Shanghai. I went up one of the tall towers way back in 2000. It was either the Jin Mao or the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. In any case, I remember coming down and feeling very hungry and I looked for somewhere to eat. There were maybe one or two restaurants, at that time. I was hoping for more choice on local food in the area.
I hope things are better now, but I’ve never been a big fan of Shanghai. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a fascinating place with some really interesting areas. However, the place is huge. When I got a ride from the edge of Shanghai to the Pudong International Airport. It felt like it took forever to cross the entire breadth of the city. And that was by car on a freeway!
I think Shanghai is worth a visit, but not my kind of town.
The bar at the Hyatt on the 87th floor of the Jin Mao is one of the most spectacular anywhere – on a good weather day. Lunch at the Peace Hotel on The Bund reminds one of perhaps, more interesting times. I once stayed inland, in Shanghai, in a hotel run by Lufthansa. There is an excellent German brewery in the basement! The Shanghai Museum is a fine building and a very good museum, it’s not far to walk to from the French Quarter.
China is getting a LEED Gold massive eco-live-work-play-tower. They could build thousands of them and it stil wouldn’t make any difference to anything. It ain’t gonna save the planet. Some people like a bit of nature with their abode and will not be interested. Marina Towers in Chicago by Bertrand Goldberg (1964) was the first.
‘On a good weather day’ — They seem to be running out of those in urban China. I visited Shanghai over 10 years ago and the air was frankly disgusting then, I can’t imagine how much worse it is now.
Eric, Thanks for the dining suggestions. At the time, I was desperately hungry and I wanted something to eat right there and then. That area of Pudong just didn’t have many restaurants in the near vicinity of the towers. I guess I could have gone to the bar in the Jin Mao, but that would have been out of place for an English teacher travelling on a budget. I just wanted a good classic Chinese street-level restaurant. It was just the wrong neighbourhood to find that kind of food.
Slightly disturbing if the video clip touts clean air inside this building..which means the Shanghai outdoor air is not often great these days.
120+ stories..um make sure one lives midway or lower. Can’t imagine walking down for fire evacuation. Or walking up if elevator breaks down…on the rare occasion.
This is no joke…had to evacuate from a 40+ storey office building in downtown Toronto several times. Workplace fire evacuations tend to be more orderly –employees on best behaviour with assigned fire evacuation volunteer captains. Not so in a residential high rise during a real fire (which I’ve been in one.).
Let’s hope there are grocery stores, some services within 15 min. walking distance.