Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower

From the Shanghai Tour website on the Oriental Peal TV Tower:

Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower was completed on Oct. 1, 1994. It is 468 m high, being the highest in Asia and the third highest in the world, only next the TV towers in Toronto in Canada and Moscow in Russia. It stands opposite to the bund on the west bank.. The architectural modeling of the tower is unique, expressing the flavor of oriental culture. The structure of the tower consists of 11 spheres, different in sizes and arranged at different levels, hanging from the sky down to the green lawns. It expresses the artistic concept of “pearls, big and small, dropping on a jade plate”. The body of the tower is formed of two huge glittering spheres and one small delicate sphere; the sightseeing level in the upper sphere is 45 m in circumference, 263 m high, offering a bird’s-eye view of the city. In the upper sphere at the 267-m level, there is a revolving restaurant, with one revolution every hour, a disco ball, a piano accompanied bar and at the 271-m level there are 20 KTV private rooms. The space cabin is at a level of 350 m, containing a sightseeing terrace, a meeting hall and a coffee room. Hotel in the Air is in the five smaller sphere with 20 guest rooms. The lower sphere contains a space city. There is a science fiction city inside the tower pedestal. The Oriental Pearl TV Tower combines sightseeing, catering, shopping, recreation, accommodation, broadcasting and TV transmission into one body. It has become a symbolic architecture and a favorable spot for tourists in Shanghai.

Here is a silhouetted photo I took of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower last year:



In my recollection of that time, the sky indeed did have a very nice tinge of orange-red as the sun was setting; however, the original photo didn't quite capture that rich colour, but luckily with some Photoshop help I'm able to add back that richness.

And here is the "original" the above image is based off from. Note: I sharpened the image and adjusted the levels of this original - so not so original original:

posted by R.Q. Chen @ Monday, June 04, 2007