Jin Mao Tower

This guide to Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai starts in 1993, when American architect Adrian Smith sat across from a Chinese client in Chicago and asked why they insisted on a single eighty-eight-story tower on a swampy site instead of two easier buildings. Their answer, tied to the word for eight and to Deng Xiaoping's visit to that same ground, sent Smith back to his drafting table with a very different brief. You'll hear how that obsession with a single number shaped the octagonal core, the stepped-back facade and even the date chosen for the opening ceremony. Listen for what it took underground, in Shanghai's soft river mud, to hold the idea up.