General information
Location: People's Republic of China Shanghai, China
Coordinates: 31°14′12″N 121°30′10″E
Constructed: 1997 – 2008
Use: Office, hotel, museum, observation, parking garage, retail
Height
Antenna or spire : 492.0 m
Roof: 487.4 m
Top floor: 474.0 m
Technical details
Floor count: 101
Floor area: 381,600 m2
Elevators: 91
Cost: RMB ¥ 8.17 billion (EUR € 870 000 000)
Corewall
They use a central corewall, This gives the building extra strenght against earthquekes and strong winds.
Foundation
The foundation exists out of 2200 steel tubing bearing piles inserted up to 78 meters into the ground.
Anecdote: This foundation was actually designed for a smaller building. The construction of the WFC took longer as planned and another building arrose next to the WFC. This building was going to be taller than the WFC. The WFC was to be the biggest building in Shanghai but the foundations were already made so the architects needed to redesign the whole building to build a higher building on the same foundations.
Mass damper
To improve the comfort of the people inside the building, the engineers placed two mass dampers to counter the sway of the building in strong winds. These mass dampers consists out of a 150 ton counterweight each and are installed on the 90th floor.
Height
The WFC is curruntly the 3th tallest building in the world. (The Federation Tower in Moscow is still under construction, and is due to complete in the year 2010)
Another fun anecdote
The first design of the building was with a round hole instead of a square. The circle is the symbol of the 'rising sun' which is the symbol of the Japanese people. This was not acceptable for the Chinese Government. So they changed it into a square.
A video about the construction of the SWFC
Route from NanJing Dong lu to the World Financial Center Shanghai with subway