The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is a 468-meter tall landmark located in Lujiazui, Shanghai. It was built in 1991 and opened in 1995. The tower has three spheres containing observation decks, a revolving restaurant, and exhibition halls. It is responsible for six TV broadcasts within an 80 km radius of Shanghai and has become a popular tourist attraction.

1. The Oriental Pearl Radio &
TV Tower
hanjourney.com

2. G eographic location:No. 1 Century Avenue,
Pudong New Area, Shanghai
Level:AAAAA
Climate type:Subtropical monsoon climate
Opening hours: 8:00-21:30
The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is one of Shanghai’s iconic cultural
landscapes. It is located in Lujiazui, Pudong New Area, with a height
of about 468 meters. The building was built in July 1991 and put into
use in May 1995. It is responsible for six sets of wireless TV launches
in Shanghai with a radius of 80 kilometers.
The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is the first batch of AAAAA tourist
attractions in the country. In the tower, there are space capsules,
revolving restaurants, Shanghai City Historical Development
Exhibition Hall and other landscapes and facilities. In 1995, it was
included in one of Shanghai’s top ten new landscapes.
Historical evolution
On August 25, 1983, Zou Fanyang, director of the Shanghai
Broadcasting Bureau, wrote a letter to the mayor Wang Daohan,
deputy mayor Yan Chongwu and the head of the State Radio and
Television Department, and first proposed the idea of using foreign
capital to build a new TV tower.
On March 25, 1984, Mayor Wang Daohan officially stated in the
municipal government work report made by the Second People’s
Congress in Shanghai: Shanghai will build a new TV tower.
In 1984, the Shanghai Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation
Commission approved the proposal for Sino-foreign cooperation to
build a 400-meter radio and television tower. After repeated

3. investigations and research, the new TV tower was selected in the
area along the river from Lujiazui in Pudong to Pudong Park. On
August 23, 1984, the Shanghai Broadcasting and Television Bureau
officially reported “Opinions on the Site Selection of the 400-meter
TV Tower”.
The Shanghai Urban Planning and Construction Administration made
a detailed demonstration of the specific location and planning of the
new tower site in Lujiazui. In March 1985, it submitted a report to the
Shanghai Municipal Government and Wang Daohan, Yan Chongwu,
Liu Zhenyuan, Ni Tianzeng and other leaders. Report on Radio and TV
Towers and Auxiliary Facilities More Than 400 Meters. In May 1985,
the Municipal Urban and Rural Construction Planning Committee
approved the above report and agreed that the site was selected in
Lujiazui, Pudong.
Since the second half of 1985, the substantive work of project
construction, feasibility study, program design and fund raising of the
construction of the tower project has been carried out, and it has
received the attention and support of the State Council, the Shanghai
Municipal Committee and the relevant departments of the Shanghai
Municipal Government. In October 1986, the project proposal was
completed and submitted to the State Planning Commission. The
building height was set at 450 meters. In January 1987, the State
Planning Commission approved the project and agreed to include the
construction of the tower project in Shanghai’s “March 4” project. In
January 1988, the Shanghai Broadcasting and Television Bureau
submitted a feasibility report for the construction of a new radio and
television tower. In July 1988, it was approved by the Shanghai
Planning Commission.
On March 4, 1989, at the enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee
of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee held by Jiang Zemin, the
discussion decided to select the “Oriental Pearl” program of East
China Architectural Design Institute. The architectural concept and
overall structure of the “Oriental Pearl” project were proposed and
completed by architects Ling Benli and Jiang Huancheng respectively.
On July 30, 1991, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Oriental Pearl
TV Tower was held.

4. On December 14, 1993, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was 350 meters
in three-dimensional structure.
On May 1, 1994, the launcher antenna mast was installed in place. On
October 1, 1994, the decoration of the ground floor hall in the tower
was completed, and the tourist facilities and the main lighting system
of the tower were put into operation.
On May 1, 1995, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was officially opened.
In 2004, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower re-engineered energy-saving
technology for lighting equipment, replacing the old light source with
LEDs.
From November 2012 to January 2013, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower
remodeled the space capsule.
From September 2013 to January 2014, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower
cleaned and repaired the facade, and the overall painting area
reached 23,000 square meters.
Building structure
The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is a multi-tube structure. The trunk is
three hollow stalwart columns with a diameter of 9 meters and a

5. height of 287 meters. The pillars are connected by a 6-meter-high
beam. At the elevation of 93 meters, three diameters are 7 meters.
The oblique column is supported, and the oblique column is at an
angle of 60° to the ground. The building has 425 foundation piles and
12 meters into the ground. The three steel structure spheres of
thousands of tons are suspended at the height of 112 meters, 295
meters and 350 meters respectively. The reinforced concrete building
plus three slopes of nearly 100 meters high support.
The TV tower has three spheres: the bottom, the top, and the top. The
top ball is called the Space Hall. The center has an elevation of 342
meters and the sphere is 16 meters in diameter. There are 4 floors,
followed by the elevator machine room, conference hall, sightseeing
layer and pipeline floor. The upper and lower spheres are suspended
structures according to different force characteristics, and the lower
ball is a prestressed concrete shell. The upper sphere is 45 meters in
diameter and the center elevation is 272.5 meters. There are 9 layers,
which are public equipment layer, frequency modulation machine
room, cooling equipment layer, transmitter room, air KTV room,
rotating restaurant, overlooking platform, microwave machine room,
and ball conversion. between. The lower sphere has a diameter of 50
meters and a center elevation of 93 meters. It has 4 floors and serves
as an indoor playground. The lower ball transformer room is located
in a bowl-shaped casing. The three vertical cylinders are joined by
five beams to form five small balls. Each ball is about 12 meters in
diameter and is designed as a high-altitude hotel. It enters the base
tower from the ground step. The tower is 158.4 meters in diameter
and has 3 floors. Its central part is 60 meters in diameter. The 2
storey space is the lobby and elevator hall of the TV tower.
The periphery is a three-story tower, with a shopping mall of nearly
20,000 square meters. The outer layer is a 15-meter-wide
underground circular garage and VIP reception room. There are 6
escalators and 6 high-speed elevators in the tower. The whole tower
building is covered under the green roof and circular driveway.
The structural scheme of the hollow cylinder and the diagonal bracing
makes the tower of the TV tower have good seismic and wind
resistance performance, and the seismic resistance standard of the

6. design is “7 levels are not moving, 8 levels are not cracked, and 9
stages are not inverted”. Among them, the subjects of “wind
engineering test research” and “earthquake engineering test
research” were identified by experts in 1993 and considered to have
reached the international advanced level.
Landscape facility
Sightseeing layer
The lower sphere outdoor sightseeing gallery with a diameter of 50
meters is 90 meters high. The 263-meter upper spherical sightseeing
layer is 45 meters in diameter and is the main sightseeing layer of the
Oriental Pearl TV Tower.
The 259-meter suspended sightseeing gallery is 150 meters long and
2.1 meters wide. It was transformed from the edge of the original
second sphere sightseeing platform. The sightseeing gallery consists
of 24 movable “petal” shaped tempered transparent laminated glass
with a building area of 17.29 square meters.
At a height of 350 meters, the capsule is 16 meters in diameter. It
displays the sci-fi charm of the space scene in a futuristic style. It is
the highest sightseeing layer of the TV tower.

7. Revolving restaurant
The Sky Rotating Restaurant of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower is located
at 267 meters above the Oriental Pearl Tower. It has a business area
of 1,500 square meters and can accommodate up to 350 tourists.
Exhibition hall
In May 2001, the 6,000-square-meter Shanghai Urban History
Development Exhibition Hall opened at the tower of the Oriental
Pearl TV Tower.

8. The exhibition hall has more than 80 scenic spots, hundreds of
precious historical relics and hundreds of scaled and beautiful
buildings in the six pavilions of the city, including the style of the
city, the glimpses of the city, the ten miles of the ocean, the old traces
of the sea, the architectural expo, and the car spring and autumn. 117
wax figures of the same size, nearly a thousand small wax figures,
and small clay figurines reflect the development of Shanghai.
Main activities
New Year’s Day climbs
The New Year’s Day of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was held since
1996. The activity has become a national fitness program for the New
Year’s Day in Shanghai with the beautiful meaning of “New Year’s
Step by Step, Upward and Upward”.

9. Earth hour
Since 2009, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower has joined the “Earth Hour”
campaign in response to WWF’s call for energy conservation and
emission reduction.
Charitable activities
On March 8th each year, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower lights up pink
lights and calls on the whole society to care for women. Every year on
April 2nd, on the World Autism Day, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower will
light blue lights and call in this form. The society is concerned about
people with autism.

10. Cultural activity
Oriental Pearl’s cultural gallery in the 4m lobby often hosts various
painting and calligraphy art and photography photo exhibitions, such
as the Oriental Flying Feather – Wild Bird Photography Art
Exhibition, Hoh Xil Protection Tibetan Antelope Photo Exhibition,
Shanghai Children’s 100m Long scroll theme painting and calligraphy
exhibition, etc.
Construction significance
The launching antenna mast of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower is 110
meters long and has the ability to launch 9 sets of TVs and 10 sets of

11. FM radio programs. It can cover the entire 80-kilometer radius of
Shanghai and neighboring provinces. Viewing quality.
The Oriental Pearl TV Tower is the first key project after the
development and opening up of Pudong. It only received 295 foreign
heads in 10 years after its completion, and held nearly 100 world-
class important conferences and more than 300 large-scale events.
Important window.
In addition, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower has also created good
tourism economic benefits. As of 2005, the number of visitors to the
Oriental Pearl TV Tower reached 28.7 million, with an operating
income of 2.236 billion yuan.
Honors
In 1999, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower won the gold medal in the 50th
Shanghai Classic Architecture Awards in New China. It also won the
first prize of Shanghai Excellent Survey and Design and the first prize
of China Civil Engineering (Zhan Tianyou Award).
In October 2001, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was rated as “National
AAAA Tourist Attractions”.
In March 2003, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower won the title of
“Shanghai Patriotism Education Base”.
In August 2007, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower was awarded the
“National AAAAA Level Scenic Spot”.
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