Capital Hangzhou Raffles City Center
Wave-scaled twin skyscrapers over a naturally ventilated shopping mall, nicknamed online for their reptilian facade.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Raffles City Hangzhou traces why architect Ben van Berkel designed twin towers of sixty-one and fifty-nine floors as one continuous surge, meant to evoke the Qiantang River's famous tidal bore frozen in steel and aluminum. It follows the nine-year build from groundbreaking around 2008 to its 2017 opening, and the engineering bet on a mall meant to ventilate itself without air conditioning. You'll hear how Chinese social media reacted to the towers' spiraling, scale-like panels almost as soon as the scaffolding came down. Look up at the rings of curved panels rotating floor by floor before you head inside.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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