City Life | 1 November 2008

Moderation has never been popular in Shanghai. Over the years the city has been home to many types of excess, from opium and sing-song girls to Red Guards. At the moment the favourite is construction, and its partner, destruction. One of the newest and boldest examples of the immoderate is the Shanghai World Financial Center. After a false start at the time of the Asian financial crisis, this megalith has shot up quite suddenly across the river from the Bund. Billed as the world’s tallest building for roof height, but second to Taiwan’s Taipei 101 if you count pointy bits, this one is big by any standards. The original design had an enormous hole at the top, ostensibly to give high-flying dragons free passage — but bearing a passing resemblance to the rising sun of the Japanese developer’s national flag. This did not find favour with the Shanghai authorities. The round hole was made square and national sensitivities were satisfied.