Wuhan Greenland Center

Wuhan Greenland Center is a supertall skyscraper in Wuhan, China, about 476 metres high. It is the tallest building in Wuhan and in central China, the ninth tallest in China and the fourteenth tallest in the world.

It was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, with Thornton Tomasetti as engineers, for the Greenland Group. The tower was first planned to be 636 metres tall with 126 floors, which would have made it the second tallest man-made structure on Earth. But after construction reached about the 96th floor, airspace rules forced a redesign, and the building was cut so that it would not rise above 502 metres. Its plan is made of three lobes that taper as it rises.

What went wrong, and how was it fixed?

The height limits came from air-traffic safety rules. Builders had to stop at the 96th floor and redraw the top. After the redesign in 2017 the work was also paused several times, first for money problems and then because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These stops and restarts helped raise the total cost to about US$4.5 billion. The planned tower would have beaten the Shanghai Tower by only 4.3 metres, which shows how close the plan came to a world record.

When was it finished?

Construction began in 2012. The tower was structurally topped out on 28 January 2019, and it was completed around 2022 according to Wikipedia, though some sources say 2023. It now stands as the tallest building in the whole region and a bold part of the Wuhan skyline. The tower was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill and cost about US$4.5 billion in total. Today it is the tallest building in Central China.

On the globe

The model shows a tall tapering tower on a three-lobed plan. Look at the top, which was cut short from the original plan.