The Bund Finance Center

This guide to the Bund Finance Center in Shanghai starts on the last empty plot along the old riverfront at Shiliupu, once part of the historic wharves where the city loaded and unloaded the world, and follows the strict rule city planners handed architects Foster and Partners: build two identical twin towers. You'll hear how the firm broke that brief into smaller stacked blocks so as not to loom over the colonial buildings next door, and how British designer Thomas Heatherwick was then brought in for the low cultural pavilion at the base and refused to leave it still. Stand at the corner facing the gold facade and watch what his team, working with engineers at Tongji University, built into it.