Canton Tower, Guangzhou, China
From Archiplanet
 | Canton Tower |
| Designer | Information Based Architecture, Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Engineer | Arup |
| Location | Guangzhou, China |
| Date | 2005 to 2010 |
| Building Type | Skyscraper |
| Construction System | steel, concrete |
| Climate | Subtropical |
| Context | Urban |
| Architectural Style | Expressionist Modern |
| Street Address | |
| Notes | Formerly known as Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower. Also known as Supermodel Tower and Xiao Man's waist. Tallest tower in the world (previously CN Tower). |
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| Building Details | |
| Area | 114,054 square meters |
| Stories | 108 |
| Height | 600 meters (spire) 1,968.5 feet; 454 meters (roof) 1,489.5 feet |
Built for the 2010 Asian Games, and located in Guangzhou, China, the Canton Tower (formerly known as the Guangzhou TV & Sightseeing Tower) became the tallest tower on its completion in mid-2010. This structure is a TV broadcast tower, with a 156-meter-long (512-foot-long) aerial antenna mounted atop its 454-meter (1,490-foot) structure. This tower surpassed the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario as the tallest structure in the world.
The pinched shape of the Canton Tower is readily anthropomorphized, as its two nicknames -- "Supermodel" tower and Xiao Man's waist -- suggest. The structure's form is derived from two ellipses, one at the top and one at the bottom tower, whose major axes are rotated with respect to each other. The two ellipses describe the top and bottommost perimeter of a latticework of twisting primary columns and secondary bracing. This structural lattice tapers inward as it forms the tower's lower half, until the tower's ellipsoidal cross-section is roughly circular. From this "waist", the lattice then mirrors its lower contraction, expanding to define the upper ellipse, at roughly right angles to the one below.
A concrete service core, offset with respect to the centers of both ellipsoidal halves of the tower, rises to the structure's 450-meter (1,480-foot) roof.
The building features a rooftop carousel (also called a horizontal Ferris wheel), that carries 16 glass passenger around the ellipsoidal perimeter of the roof, offering panoramic views of Guangzhou.
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Canton Tower
See a related page at Wikipedia for additional information.
