Shanghai World Finacial Center

The Shanghai Bottle Opener: A Building That Outlasted Its Record

The Shanghai World Financial Center opened in 2008 after a decade of construction that was interrupted by the 1997 Asian financial crisis and significantly redesigned mid-build. The trapezoidal aperture near its apex – the detail that earned it the immediate nickname “the bottle opener” from Shanghai residents – was originally designed as a circle. During construction, the developer, Japanese company Mori Building, changed it to a rectangle to avoid any resemblance to the rising sun on the Japanese flag. The pragmatic redesign inadvertently became the building’s defining feature.

At 492 metres, it was the tallest building in China when completed. Seven years later, the Shanghai Tower rose 632 metres next door and took the record. That the SWFC is now the second tallest of the three Lujiazui towers – the Jin Mao (421 metres) is third – has not diminished its appeal. The three towers clustered close enough together that all three frequently appear in the same photograph represent Shanghai’s most deliberate architectural statement: this city can build at a speed and scale that has no precedent in the history of urban development.

The Observation Decks

The Skywalk observation facility runs across the 94th, 97th, and 100th floors. The 94th floor (Level 94, 423 metres) is a conventional enclosed deck with 360-degree views. The 97th floor adds a glass floor section. The 100th floor (Level 100, 474 metres) is the main event: a transparent walkway running along the length of the aperture at the building’s apex. Looking straight down through the glass floor at rush hour – the city grid, the river bend, the tiny cars 474 metres below – produces an immediate physical response that photographs consistently underrepresent.

Tickets for the top-level observation deck cost 180 CNY (roughly USD 25) on weekdays and 200 CNY on weekends; combined-level tickets run 220-280 CNY. Book online via the SWFC website in advance. Without booking, weekend queues can reach 45 to 90 minutes. Late afternoon, when the sun is low over the Bund and the river reflects gold below, is the best observation time.

The View From Up There

From 474 metres on a clear day, you see the Pudong financial district extending east to the industrial port beyond. Looking west across the Huangpu, the Bund’s early 20th-century European commercial buildings are legible as a coherent strip: the HSBC building, the Customs House clock tower with its 24-hour face, the Peace Hotel. The bend of the river and the contrast between the two sides of Shanghai – one built between 1910 and 1945 as a colonial trading port, one built between 1990 and now as a financial megacity – is the essential argument for being at this altitude. From the Bund you see the skyline; from the 100th floor you see both the skyline and the city it rose from.

The Other Two Towers

Jin Mao (421 metres, completed 1998) has an observation deck on the 88th floor at 340 CNY. The Grand Hyatt hotel occupies floors 54 through 87; the atrium lobby looking up through 34 floors of hotel interior to the ceiling is more architecturally striking than the external views.

Shanghai Tower (632 metres, completed 2015) has its observation deck at 546 metres. The building’s spiralling exterior form reduces wind load by 24 percent; inside, the design organises the floors into vertical neighbourhoods separated by sky gardens at different levels. Entry runs 180 to 220 CNY.

Getting There and the Bund

Metro Line 2 stops at Lujiazui station directly under the financial district, five minutes from People’s Square. The SWFC is a 10-minute walk from the station past the other towers.

The Bund is 15 minutes by taxi or a 2 CNY ferry ride from Lujiazui dock. Walking the Bund promenade facing the Pudong skyline is the complementary experience to the observation deck: you are at river level watching the towers rise rather than at 474 metres watching the river run below. The two perspectives together make up the most complete possible view of Shanghai.

Eating on the Bund itself is expensive (300 to 600 CNY per person at rooftop restaurants). Behind the Bund on Fuzhou Road and around Yu Garden in the Old City, xiaolongbao at Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant runs 30 to 55 CNY for a basket with a queue that moves.