Top 10 tallest buildings in Asia
Top 10 tallest buildings in Asia

When they opened in August 1999, the Petronas Towers were not only the tallest buildings in the world, but the first outside the United States to hold the title since 1885.

The 452-metre twins became an unmistakable symbol of Kuala Lumpur.

At 508 metres, Tapei 101, which took the world title from Kuala Lumpur in 2004, still clings to a place in Asia’s top 10 but has since dropped to seventh.

Asia is now the place where you build fast and stand tall. Seven of world’s tallest buildings are there, five of which are in China.

With more nations in the eastern part of the world beginning to construct humungous projects, don’t be surprised to see Asia filled with cloud-kissing towers that are so high – it almost reaches the sky. Wait till you see the tower in Dubai that will surely put your knees trembling!

The list of top 10 tallest and most beautiful buildings in Asia

10. Guangzhou International Finance Center – China

9. Kingkey 100 – China

8. Zifeng Tower – China

7. Petronas Twin Tower – Malaysia

6. International Commerce Center – Hong Kong

5. Shanghai World Financial Center – China

4. Taipei 101 – Taiwan

3. Abraj Al Bait – Saudi Arabia

2. Shanghai Tower – China

1. Burj Khalifa – Dubai

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What are the tallest and most beautiful buildings in Asia?

10. Guangzhou International Finance Center – China

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Guangzhou International Finance Center or Guangzhou West Tower, is a 103-story, 438.6 m (1,439 ft) skyscraper at Zhujiang Avenue West in the Tianhe District of Guangzhou, Guangdong. One half of the Guangzhou Twin Towers, it is the 24th tallest building in the world, completed in 2010. As of March 2018, it is the world's tallest building with a roof-top helipad, at 439 m (1,439 feet) high. The world's second-tallest building with a roof-top helipad was also completed in 2010: Beijing's China World Trade Center Tower III, whose roof-top helipad is 330 m (1,083 feet) high. Both buildings are taller than the U.S. Bank Tower, the previous record-holder from 1989 to 2010, whose roof-top helipad is only 310.3 m (1,018 feet) high.

Construction of the building, designed by WilkinsonEyre, broke ground in December 2005, and was completed in 2010. The building is used as a conference center, hotel and office building. Floors 1 through 66 are used as offices, floors 67 and 68 are for mechanical equipment, floors 69 to 98 have a Four Seasons Hotel with the lobby being on the 70th floor, and floors 99 and 100 are used as an observation deck.

The building was previously known as Guangzhou West Tower and had a related project, the proposed Guangzhou East Tower, which, at 475 m (1,558 ft), would have been even taller, though that project has been awarded to a different design by Kohn Pedersen Fox, the 530 m (1,740 ft) Guangzhou CTF Finance Center.

9. Kingkey 100 – China

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Kingkey 100 (KK100) is located 5016 Shennan East Road, Luohu District, Shenzhen in Guangdong Province. It is formerly known as the Kingkey Financial Centre. This building is 441.8 meters tall and there are a total of 100 floors. It is the tallest building in Shenzhen, the fourth tallest building in mainland of China and the eighth tallest building in the world for now (in 2013). The building was designed jointly by two internationally renowned architectural firms from the United Kingdom - TFP and ARUP. And the China Construction Fourth Engineering Bureau Co., Ltd. was responsible for the construction of it.

The steel that Kingkey 100 used to construct reaches a maximum thickness of 130 mm and the steel consumption of this building reached 60,000 tons, which is the first case in Shenzhen, even in the whole country. The cumulative length of all the welds may be circled around the equator for four circles. And the construction is in the use of C80 high strength cement, which has a higher strength and toughness. This is the first case in the country's skyscrapers. Kingkey 100 has regarded as another landmark in Shenzhen.

The 75-100 layers will be jointly created super five-star luxury hotel - the St. Regis Hotel, with the world's top hotel management company, Starwood. The hotel will also become one of the world's highest hotels. At the bottom of Building, it is an international characteristics business square, with a building area of more than 80000 square meters. The design of store here is synchronous with the international trend, reflects the modern culture and includes the world class brand shopping stores.

8. Zifeng Tower – China

Photo: Pinterest
Photo: Pinterest

Zifeng Tower (Greenland Center-Zifeng Tower or Greenland Square Zifeng Tower, formerly Nanjing Greenland Financial Center) is a 450-meter (1,480 ft) supertall skyscraper (special class of skyscraper) in Nanjing, Jiangsu. The 89-story building completed in 2010 comprises retail and office space up to floor 41. Floors 49–71 feature a hotel, numerous restaurants, and a public observatory on the 72-floor. The tower's stepping is functional; office, hotel, and retail are located above grade, while the restaurants and the public observatory are housed at the top of the tower. The building is currently the tallest in Nanjing and Jiangsu province, the eleventh tallest in China and the twentieth tallest in the world.

Architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the building, led by Adrian Smith. The Tower occupies an area of 18,721 square meters. The Nanjing Greenland InterContinental Hotel is located within the tower.

7. Petronas Twin Tower – Malaysia

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Petronas Twin Towers were once the tallest buildings in the world. Now the world’s tallest twin structures, the 88-storey buildings were designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates with both towers joined at the 41st and 42nd floors (175m above street level) by a 58 metre-long, double-decker Sky Bridge.

Standing 452 metres tall, the Petronas Twin Towers retained its world-title claim to fame until 2004 when Taipei's 101 was built, measuring 508 metres tall. Today, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (opened in 2010) retains the spot as the world’s tallest building. Located in the KL city centre, the Petronas Twin Towers’ architecture is Islamic-inspired and the buildings primarily house the corporate headquarters of the Petronas Company and other offices.

When the Petronas Twin Towers were completed in 1998 they were declared the tallest buildings in the world, surpassing the 442-metre-tall Willis Tower in Chicago, U.S.A. At the base of the Petronas Twin Towers is Suria KLCC, an upmarket shopping mall that is very popular with tourists.

Tower One is fully occupied by the Malaysian state oil company Petronas, and its subsidiaries and associate companies. Tower Two is mostly taken up by multinational companies such as Accenture, Al-Jazeera, Barclays Capital, Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, McKinsey & Co., Microsoft, Reuters and more.

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6. International Commerce Center – Hong Kong

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

The International Commerce Centre represents a shift in the tall building paradigm to include not only achievements in height, design, and engineering, but also the most forward-thinking moves towards connectivity for smart growth in a highly dense region.

KPF’s 118-story tower accommodates offices, a 360 degree observation deck, and one of the world’s highest hotels, The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong. The tower is the centerpiece of the Union Square reclamation project, establishing a new urban center with office, retail, hotel and recreation spaces, as well as a new transportation hub, Kowloon Station, which connects to Central, Hong Kong, the International Airport and mainland China via a network of high speed rail, subway, buses, and ferry terminals.

The tower’s subtly tapered re-entrant corners and the gently sloped curves at its base are designed to optimize its structural performance. These curves splay out at the base of the tower, rooting the tower in its surroundings, while creating sheltering canopies on three sides, and a dramatic atrium on the north side. The atrium gestures towards the rest of the development and serves as a public connection space for retail and rail station functions. KPF’s scheme succeeds in wedding the high-rise building model with a highly efficient structural and operational agenda.

5. Shanghai World Financial Center – China

Photo: KPF
Photo: KPF

The International Commerce Centre (abbreviated ICC) is a 108-storey, 484 m (1,588 ft) commercial skyscraper completed in 2010 in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is a part of the Union Square project on top of Kowloon station. It was the 4th tallest building in the world (third in Asia) when its construction was completed in 2010. As of June 2019, it is the world's 12th tallest building by height, world's ninth tallest building by number of floors, as well as the tallest building in Hong Kong and also the 6th tallest building within China.

International Commerce Centre compared with other tallest buildings in Asia.

Notable amenities include The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong hotel and an observatory called Sky100.

The ICC faces the second-tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong, the 2 International Finance Centre (IFC) directly across Victoria Harbour in Central, Hong Kong Island. IFC was also developed by Sun Hung Kai Properties, along with another major Hong Kong developer, Henderson Land.

4. Taipei 101 – Taiwan

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

The Taipei 101, formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, is a skyscraper designed by C.Y. Lee and C.P. Wang in Taipei, Taiwan. This building was officially classified as the world's tallest from its opening in 2004 until the 2009 completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE. Upon completion, it became the world’s first skyscraper to exceed a height of half-a-kilometre.

Its elevators, capable of traveling 60.6 km/h (37.7 mph) and used to transport passengers from the 5th to the 89th floor in 37 seconds, set new records upon completion. In 2011 Taipei 101 received a Platinum rating under the LEED certification system to become the tallest and largest green building in the world. The structure regularly appears as an icon of Taipei in international media, and the Taipei 101 fireworks displays are a regular feature of New Year's Eve broadcasts.

Taipei 101's postmodernist architectural style evokes traditional Asian aesthetics in a modern structure employing industrial materials. Its design incorporates a number of features that enable the structure to withstand the Pacific Ring of Fire's earthquakes and the region's tropical storms. The tower houses offices and restaurants as well as both indoor and outdoor observatories. The tower is adjoined by a multilevel shopping mall that has the world's largest ruyi symbol as an exterior feature.

3. Abraj Al Bait – Saudi Arabia

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Abrāj al-Bayt, also spelled Abrāj al-Bait, also called Makkah Royal Clock Tower, multitowered skyscraper complex adjacent to the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Completed in 2012, it is the world’s second tallest building, surpassed only by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The central clock tower (including its spire) rises to a height of 1,972 feet (601 metres). The Abrāj al-Bayt complex has approximately 16 million square feet (1.5 million square metres) of floor space, nearly equaling the area of Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3—the largest building in the world by floor area. The complex houses hotels, shopping centres, residential apartments, and a prayer area capable of accommodating thousands of worshippers. Designed and constructed by the Saudi Binladin Group, along with a number of other Saudi and international firms, the entire project was reported to cost $3 billion.

2. Shanghai Tower – China

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, 632-meter-tall (2,073 ft) megatall skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. It is the world's second-tallest building by height to architectural top and it shares the record (along with the Ping An Finance Center) of having the world's highest observation deck within a building or structure at 562 m. It had the world's second-fastest elevators at a top speed of 20.5 meters per second (74 km/h; 46 mph) until 2017, when it was surpassed by the Guangzhou CTF Finance Center, with its top speed of 21 meters per second (76 km/h; 47 mph). Designed by international design firm Gensler and owned by the Shanghai Municipal Government, it is the tallest of the world's first triple-adjacent supertall buildings in Pudong, the other two being the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center. Its tiered construction, designed for high energy efficiency, provides nine separate zones divided between office, retail and leisure use.

Construction work on the tower began in November 2008 and topped out on 3 August 2013. The exterior was completed in summer 2015, and work was considered complete in September 2014. Although the building was originally scheduled to open to the public in November 2014, the actual public-use date slipped considerably. The observation deck was opened to visitors in July 2016; the period from July through September 2018 was termed a "test run" or "commissioning" period. Since April 26, 2017, the sightseeing deck on the 118th floor has been open to the public. Since its opening, the tower has had significant maintenance issues and remains largely unoccupied.

1. Burj Khalifa – Dubai

Photo: Wikipedia
Photo: Wikipedia

Burj Khalifa, Khalifa also spelled Khalīfah, mixed-use skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that is the world’s tallest building, according to all three of the main criteria by which such buildings are judged (see Researcher’s Note: Heights of Buildings). Burj Khalifa (“Khalifa Tower”), known during construction as Burj Dubai, was officially named to honour the leader of the neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa ibn Zayed Al Nahyan. Although the tower was formally opened on January 4, 2010, the entirety of the interior was not complete at that time. Built to house a variety of commercial, residential, and hospitality ventures, the tower—whose intended height remained a closely guarded secret throughout its construction—reached completion at 162 floors and a height of 2,717 feet (828 metres). It was designed by the Chicago-based architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Adrian Smith served as architect, and William F. Baker served as structural engineer.

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