Tianjin CTF Finance Centre

The Tianjin CTF Finance Centre is a supertall skyscraper in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, China. It is 530 metres tall with 97 floors. Construction started in 2013 and was completed in 2019. CTF stands for Chow Tai Fook, the company behind the project.

It is the second-tallest building in Tianjin after the unfinished Goldin Finance 117, the eighth-tallest building in the world, and the tallest building in the world with fewer than 100 floors. It was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill together with Ronald Lu & Partners, and it stands in the central business district of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area.

Shape and style

The tower has a square plan with rounded corners and a gently curving glass skin. Eight sloping mega-columns follow lines that connect the centres and corners of the four sides, and they help the tower resist earthquakes. They loop together at the crown, which one description compares to the wings of a cicada.

The floor plates get smaller as they rise, so the tower tapers sharply and exposes less surface to wind, sun and moisture.

Fooling the wind

Tall buildings can start to shake when wind swirls off their sides in a pattern, called vortex shedding. The architects found that tapering the tower and softening sharp corners disrupts that pattern. In their words, the shape confuses the wind, so no steady push builds up against the structure.

How it was built

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on 20 November 2009. By July 2016 the concrete core tube had been poured to 260 metres. CTBUH confirmed the tower was structurally topped out in April 2017, the steel crown was sealed on 31 October 2017, and the building was completed in September 2019.

In 2021 it won the Tall/Slender Structure award from the Institution of Structural Engineers.

On the globe

The model shows the slim tower with curved columns and an open crown at the top. Look at the tapering shape.