Lujiazui

Lujiazui was farmland and fishing villages into the 1990s. The decision to locate Shanghai's new financial district on a peninsula of Pudong, visible across the Huangpu from the Bund, was made in 1990 as part of the wider Pudong New Area development initiative. The site was cleared and a plan drawn up that concentrated towers on a wedge of land facing the river, with their collective impact designed to read from the Bund as a statement of economic transformation.

The Oriental Pearl Tower (1994), with its two large spheres on a three-legged base, was the first major structure; it was followed by the Jin Mao Tower (1999, SOM), the Shanghai World Financial Centre (2008, Kohn Pedersen Fox — the 'bottle opener' building), and Shanghai Tower (2015, Gensler — at 632 metres, China's tallest completed building). The four structures create an accidental skyline composition that has become one of the most photographed in Asia.

Visiting the observation decks repays the considerable expense if visibility is good; Shanghai's periodic low cloud and pollution can render the view unremarkable. The Jin Mao Tower deck at level 88, inside the Grand Hyatt atrium, is particularly dramatic in clear conditions — looking straight down into the 152-metre hotel atrium.

The Shanghai Tower contains a public atrium at the base that is accessible without charge and gives some sense of the building's scale. The Sky Walk, at level 55 of the World Financial Centre, offers views through a glazed floor section over the surrounding towers.