Shanghai Stay:  October 26-30, 2010

One of the reasons I wanted to visit Shanghai was because of its impressive Architecture, not to mention the World Exposition.

Shanghai’s Architecture definitely rivals Chicago and New York’s.  The massive Buildings that crop up towards downtown Shanghai is amazing.  All the steel and glass reaching for the sky.  I love the idea of the skyscrapers being so close to each other they become a bouquet of buildings.

Some buildings of interest:

– The Shanghai World Financial Centre aka The Bottle Opener Building.  Towering at 101 stories designed by KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox)  It has office spaces, hotel, a museum, garage and retail.  Not to mention a great observation space.

– The Oriental Pearl Tower aka the large Antenna with a ball. Designed by Shanghai Modern Architectural Design Co. Ltd. It is used for  communication it also has a hotel, observation and a restaurant

-The Jin Mao Tower or Translated “The Golden Prosperity Building”. Designed by SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merril) it towers at 88 stories.  It has office spaces, hotel and retail.  Not to mention a great observation space.

-The China Insurance Building aka Is that the HSBC Building in HK?  Designed by WZMH Architects (Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden). I took me a while to figure out the name of this building. both this building and HSBC are heavy-handed with the steel design.  This is what makes it my favorite skyscraper in Shanghai, it isn’t pretending to be a dainty tall building.  It shows its structure throughout!  Everyone knows skyscrapers are really just a pile of steel encased in glass this building just flaunted its structure naturally.  If you are an Architectural Nerd this is a website you will get sucked into- Skyscraper page

These were all taken with my Toy Camera, that’s why they look so awesome. All before the magic of Instagram there was this wonderful thing called lomography.

Shanghai Sky Line and a nice view of the Jin Mao Tower

Does this look familiar? I posted it previously on an earlier post… It is me and the bottle opener.