CITIC Plaza

When completed in 1997, the CITIC Plaza in Guangzhou's Tianhe district was the tallest building in China and the tallest reinforced concrete tower in the world, at 391 metres and 80 floors. Architects Dennis Lau and Ng Chun Man gave the building a rectangular footprint with set-back corner pillars and a two-stage antenna crown lit at night. The client was the CITIC Group, a state investment company founded in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping's government. CITIC Plaza held the city record until 2010, when the 437-metre Guangzhou IFC took over. It now sits embedded in the CBD cluster around Zhujiang New Town. The tower itself is office space with no public observation deck, but from the streets below and the surrounding skyscrapers, its angular silhouette is a recurring fixed point in the skyline. It is especially worth seeing in the evening when the antenna crown is lit.