We’ve already talked about the Oriental Pearl Tower which was the tallest tower in China until 2007. So, what superseded the 1,535-foot tower? The Canton Tower. Formally known as the Guangzhou TV Astronomical and Sightseeing Tower, the Canton Tower reaches heights of 1,982 feet or 604 meters. It is located in the city of Guangzhou and surpassed even the CN Tower for a while as the world’s tallest tower.
Interestingly, Canton Tower was designed by Dutch architects Mark Hemel and Barbara Juit together with Arup which is headquartered in London. The design for the tower was developed in 2004 with the groundbreaking occurring a year later, in 2005. October 1, 2010, is when the tower became open to the public even though it was not fully completed until December 2011. The early opening was because of the 16th Asian Games which were being hosted by Guangzhou.
In 2009, the tower had not been given a name yet, so the investor, Guangzhou Daily, started a contest and received 180,000 valid entries. I’m surprised Tower McTowering wasn’t the winner given how well some of those things turn out. The winning name was Haixin Tower (translates to “Tower in the Sea”) but it was considered to obscure for people unfamiliar with the city’s history. Until the completion of the tower, residents called it a variety of names including, “Slim Waist,” “Twisted Firewood,” and Yangdianfeng (“Peak of the Ram City”). The name was reconsidered in 2010 with the official name being announced as Canton Tower at the end of September that year.
