The Jin Mao Tower stands in the middle of the Lujiazui financial district in Pudong, on the eastern bank of the Huangpu, and it was completed in 1999 at 420 metres. For about a decade it was the tallest building in China, until the neighbouring Shanghai World Financial Center and then the Shanghai Tower overtook it. What it retains is the best position in the district: it sits between its two successors, so its observation level looks down onto the Oriental Pearl Tower's spheres to one side and across the river to the Bund on the other.
The building
The design is a deliberate piece of cultural referencing: the tower steps inward as it rises in a pattern borrowed from the pagoda, and the number of tiers and the proportions were chosen to relate to the number eight, which carries associations of prosperity in Chinese. The facade is a grid of aluminium and glass, and it is one of the few supertalls of its generation where the structural expression is legible from outside. The lower floors hold offices and a hotel, and the tower is joined to a retail podium and to the surrounding towers by elevated walkways.
The observation deck
The observation level occupies the upper floors, with an indoor gallery and outlook windows on all sides; a section of floor is glazed so you can look straight down through the tower. On a clear day the view runs out over the whole of Pudong, across to the Bund and the Puxi skyline, and up the river in both directions. Air quality decides everything: on a good day after rain the visibility can be tens of kilometres, on a hazy day the city below fades within a few hundred metres. Late afternoon and just after dark give the best balance of daylight detail and lit buildings.
Practical notes
Lujiazui is served by metro line 2 and by the Bund sightseeing tunnel, and the tower is a short walk from the station through the elevated pedestrian network. Tickets are timed and can be bought in advance; queues build at weekends and around sunset. The neighbouring Shanghai Tower has a higher deck, and the Oriental Pearl Tower has a glass floor, so if the view is the priority it is worth comparing which is open and clearest on the day you visit. Allow ninety minutes for the tower and the surrounding walkways.
