Foreign Property News | Posted by Si Thu Aung
Chinese financial conglomerate CITIC Group has inaugurated Beijing’s tallest skyscraper, formally known as the CITIC Tower, eight years after breaking ground.
At 528 metres (1,732 feet) tall, and commonly known as China Zun, the skyscraper rises above its closest rival – the China World Trade Centre’s Tower 3 – by almost two hundred metres, according to an announcement by US architect firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, which designed the building.
Marking the latest in a string of “supertalls” in China that rise over 300 metres in height, the 108-storey tower is the fourth tallest in the country and the eighth tallest worldwide.
CITIC Heye Investment, a unit of state-owned CITIC Group, celebrated the official debut of China Zun by projecting a light show onto the facade of the building on 1 October, the seventieth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
With a broad base and narrowing convex sides, the design of the vase-shaped tower draws its inspiration from an ancient Chinese ritual vessel called the “zun”, according to KPF.
“KPF’s goal for CITIC Tower was to create a centrepiece for the new CBD that would elicit harmony with the historic capital while proposing aspirational and contemporary architecture,” said the firm’s design director, Li Lei.
The vessel-inspired shape is functional as well as aesthetic, with the broader base giving the skyscraper more stability in China’s seismic zone, the architect explained.
An observation deck and meeting rooms occupy the top three floors, while the building also has seven basement levels.
Ref: Property Report
