Raffles City Chongqing is suite of eight buildings in

Yuzhong District Yuzhong District () is the central district and heart of Chongqing municipality. It is the capital of the municipality and is also the political, economical, and entertainment center of the city of Chongqing. Located in the central portion of Yuz ...

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...

, China, developed by Singaporean real estate developer

CapitaLand CapitaLand is a Singaporean headquartered company focusing on investment, development and management of real estate. It is one of Asia's largest real estate companies and the owner and manager of a global portfolio comprising integrated develo ...

. Raffles City Chongqing features a 300-metre-long horizontal skybridge called "Crystal" that connects the top of four of the skycrapers. The skybridge will be the second highest in the world after the

Kingdom Centre Kingdom Centre (Arabic: مركز المملكة) is a 41-story, skyscraper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When completed in 2002, it overtook the Faisaliyah Tower as the tallest tower in Saudi Arabia. It has since been surpassed and, , is the fifth ...

. The entire project comprises eight towers with a total of 817,000 square metres of floor space. It was designed by Israeli-Canadian architect

Moshe Safdie Moshe Safdie ( he, משה ספדיה; born July 14, 1938) is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author, with Israeli, Canadian, and American citizenship. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible desi ...

. It is one of the most expensive buildings built in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It replaced the 32-story passenger terminal building and hotel built in 1996 and the

Three Gorges Hotel 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...

demolished on August 30, 2012. Raffles City Chongqing 2019-9

Timeline

Construction began around 2013. As of February 2019, the structures had been completed and the interior was being finished.

Overview

Raffles City Chongqing consists of eight skyscrapers situated on a site covering 9.2 hectares, in

, at the tip of the peninsula where the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

and

Jialing River The Jialing River, formerly known by numerous other names, is a major tributary of the Yangtze River in the Sichuan Basin. It is named after the Jialing Valley in Feng County, Shaanxi through which it flows. The Jialing River's most notable c ...

s meet. Atop four of the 250-metre-tall towers is an enclosed skyway, called the Crystal. Two 350-metre-tall towers connect to them, each via a cantilever bridge. Two other 250-metre-tall towers are adjacent to these six. The project will contain 1.12 million square metres of space, 817,000 square metres of which will be floor space and will include 150,000m² of offices and 1,400 residences, a hotel, a 235,000m² shopping mall, and landscaped grounds. The buildings are reinforced concrete with concrete-encased steel columns and steel floor spanning. The height to tip is 354.5 metres with 79 above-ground floors and 3 below.

The Crystal

The Crystal is an enclosed 300-metre-long horizontal skyway that sits atop four of the buildings. It is 32.5m wide and 26.5m high. The Crystal will set a record for being the highest in the world linking the highest number of towers. The exterior consists of approximately 3,000 glass panels and nearly 5,000 aluminum panels. The Crystal was constructed in nine parts. Four were constructed on the top of the towers and the three middle parts were prefabricated and raised from the ground and installed. Within the Crystal, there will be two swimming pools, restaurants, a gallery, gardens with trees, and a viewing site.

Design and recognition

The project was designed by architect

. It was inspired by Chinese sailing vessels and is a tribute to Chongqing historical past as a maritime trading centre. Raffles City Chongqing won the China Tall Building Innovation Award.

References

External links