In celebration of its third birthday (and probably also in celebration of not being on fire) today the Shanghai World Financial Center announced new and exciting discounts! Not only is a visit to the observatory deck absolutely free on your birthday, but everybody under 23 or over 60 gets a 30% discount! That means that you only have to pay full price for 37 years of your life! Deals begin tomorrow, so if today is your birthday then you'll just have to wait until next year. Sorry. more ›

That's what frantic Weibo users were speculating about on Saturday night when multiple photos were uploaded around 8pm showing what appeared to be plumes of smoke coming off the top of Shanghai's tallest building. Fire authorities' official response: "Nope, clouds." more ›

Good news for Shanghai's window cleaners: They won't be out of a job any time soon. According to a report released on Monday by Skyscrapers Magazine, there is a new skyscraper built every five days in China. This means that by 2016 there will be 800, four times the number in the US. more ›

In Shanghaiist's monthly Hotelist feature, we take a sneak peek at the various hotels around town that have caught our fancy. This week, China's tallest hotel: Park Hyatt Shanghai at the SWFC. more ›

Construction started Saturday on the Shanghai Tower, Shanghai's next "tallest building". At 632m tall and with 138 floors, it checks in with a price tag of $2.2 billion USD, and will take six years to build. By comparison, its next-door neighbor, the Jinmao Tower, is 421m tall, while the still-brand-spankin' new World Financial Center is tops out at "only" 492m. The Shanghai Tower will, obviously, be the tallest building in China when it is completed. more ›

A giant device specially designed for opening sealed bottles otherwise known as the Shanghai World Financial Center has been named the world's "Best Tall Building" this year by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The last time this device made the news was in January when a certain city blog broke the news that a horde of misbehaving monkeys had scaled the giant bottle opener illegally. The monkeys managed to flee the country before police caught up with them. more ›

Shanghai-based blogger Elaine Chow plunks down 150 kuai and writes, "It took one last elevator to bring me up those three final levels. This time, as I stepped out of the elevator and into the walkway, it was hard not to gasp." Read it all here. And read all of Elaine's Gizmodo posts here. more ›

Forget your banking cube farm in the WFC, Shanghai's coolest office space is Leafy Shade in Hong Kou district. more ›

"China has deployed more than 8,000 soldiers and military reservists to help search and rescue efforts in the south-west after an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 killed 38 people." more ›

Photo from 2 dogs more ›

For those of you that still haven't gotten around to your own illegal hike up the World Financial Center, you'll be glad to know you can soon get a bird's eye view of the city from the top of that building without risking arrest. Yes, the building that's been through many trials and tribulations will finally be open this Saturday. Apparently, the gallery located on the 100th floor of the skyscraper at a height of 474 metres (1,555 feet) above the ground is the world's highest sightseeing hall. From AFP:

Sightseers who want a bird's eye view of the city will have to pay 150 yuan (22 dollars) each for the experience, it said. more ›

Some of you have been asking on our Facebook page (remember to sign up as a Fan!) if there will be an update of the Shanghaiist logo once the WFC — you know, the building that had to be redesigned because it reminded people too much of the Japanese flag, took forever to be built because of a property glut, was almost burnt down, and recently suffered a security breach — is up and running. more ›

We told you about Shanghai's skyscraper envy. Now, the World Financial Center has barely been completed but our wonderful city has already announced plans for yet another skyscraper that will dwarf it. Two days ago, the all-authoritative Xinhua produly proclaimed that the new building, which is to be named Shanghai Center (we are unsure if this has any relation to the existing Shanghai Center) will be the world's tallest at 580 meters and 118 stories. According to them, that's 72 meters higher than the Taipei 101 Tower, currently the tallest building in Asia at 508 meters and "25 meters higher than the 555-meter-tall Burj Dubai skyscraper, which is still under construction". more ›

Apparently our friends were so addicted to the experience they've done it a few times since. It also looks like a mini-trend has caught on, as several other groups have been inspired to organise their own expeditions up the WFC. more ›

Yet another fire has broken out in Shanghai and not too far away from where the last fire broke out! This video shows some building on Nanjing Lu on fire and the fire brigade actively working to douse the fire. It remains unclear from the video (or from the comments) which building that was. Was any Shanghaiist in the area today? more ›

Fire broke out today at the US$910 million 101-storey tall Shanghai World Financial Center in an elevator shaft on the 40th floor at about 4pm today. Eight fire trucks were dispatched to douse the fire, and it was eventually extinguished by 5.42 pm. There were no reports of injuries or deaths. more ›

Photo by staffh was found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page. more ›

"A local education official who organised the song and dance performance, Kuang Li, locked herself in the toilet, keeping out children who suffocated, according to Chen's blog. Kuang was jailed for four years." more ›

Despite stuff like Academy Hills and an in-house art museum, most of the descriptions that we've read so far make Roppongi Hills seem like a it's a playground for the gliterrati, i.e. the rich, influential, well-connected as well as tourists. more ›

On the website, there's information about the hotel, world's highest observatory, shopping and business areas that will comprise the center. As for the name, we found this explanation: more ›

One of the landmark structures, Jinmao Tower, has been erected, and another, the Shanghai World Financial Tower, is being built. ... more ›

A couple good Shanghai blogs have noticed recently that the under-construction World Financial Center in Pudong is gaining rapidly on its older (and soon to be shorter) cousin, Jinmao Tower. more ›

Photo by CAI Yan taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos "shanghaiist". Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site. more ›

Shanghaiist liked this little article from Business Week which focuses on the innovative architectural landscaping that is going to make certain places look less shitty remake China from the ground up. Yessirree, we've got the National Swimming Center in Beijing, the new Beijing International Airport, the Shanghai World Financial Center (which looks like a huge sewing pin or snazzy bottle opener for giants), Shanghai's planned Donghai bridge that will connect us with the outlying islands, and the Dongtan eco-city on Chongming Island (the first phase to be completed in 2010, the whole thing by 2040 ... which means just in time for Shanghaiist to retire in what we hope will become an eco-Brooklyn on the Yangtze). There's also some less monumental but also interesting concepts, like "The Commune", eleven avant-garde villas by the Great Wall which we think is being run as a hotel, and what to us is the best of the lot -- the "Linked Hybrid", a residential complex which will house 2,500 people in 700 geothermally heated and cooled apartments that will be connected at a certain floor with a ring of cafes. Though we had problems opening up some related web pages, we think it will also include a movie theater, a kindergarten, and parking for all those extra Bentleys. more ›

Last month, the developers and designers of the nearly-a-decade-in-the-making Shanghai World Financial Center (WFC) skyscraper in Pudong caved in to pressure from China's Japan haters and announced they had made alterations to the planned appearance of the building, which will be one of the world's tallest if it ever gets completed. Most notable among the changes -- the large circular hole that was to cut through the building's top floors was replaced by a large trapezoidal hole (uh oh, murderous cult alert). Some had complained that the circle design looked too much like the "rising sun" image from Japan's flag, especially considering the WFC's developer, Mori Building, hails from Tokyo. (Of course, the building's designers Kohn Pederson Fox -- three decidedly un-Japanese names -- don't have offices in Tokyo, opting instead for three other powder kegs of anti-China sentiment: New York, London and, er, Shanghai.) more ›