Love or loathe them, skyscrapers are shooting up at a rapid pace in cities around the world. They're a symbol of humankind’s ambition and are used as a signal of economic dynamism in developing urban centres. They’re also a brilliant way to get a new perspective on a place. Here we look at the world’s super-tall buildings with summits accessible to the public.
Click through the gallery to discover the world's highest and most amazing observation decks...
This towering trailblazer dominates Kuala Lumpur’s skyline and offers sightseers two observation decks: one is set on the teetering skybridge, and another is on the 86th floor of Tower 2. From here, you can gaze at the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur below and also see the spire of the tower’s twin in intricate detail. Various interactive displays and exhibits also tell the story of the buildings. Reaching a height of 1,483 feet (452m), they held the dual title of the world’s tallest buildings from 1998 until 2004.
The skybridge is a marvel of engineering too – mindbogglingly, it's only partially attached to the main building, allowing for movement during adverse weather. With their intricate glass-and-stainless-steel exterior, each tower weighs 300,000 tonnes – the equivalent of more than 40,000 elephants. Architect Cesar Pelli was inspired by characteristics of Islamic architecture in his vision for this modern icon of Malaysia.
Ho Chi Minh City gained the highest skyscraper in southeast Asia in 2018 (it is now the region's second highest), when the shiny new Landmark 81 topped out at 1,513 feet (461m). The country’s first supertall structure, it was part of a new urban development, Vinhomes Central Park, on the western banks of the Saigon River, near the Saigon Bridge. Designed by British architects Atkins, the building has a distinctive bundled design, consisting of 36 square tubes of differing heights. It resembles a bundle of bamboo, a symbol of strength and unity in Vietnam.
The tower has become one of the city's top tourist attractions with its three-level observation deck, Skyview, spreading across floors 79 to 81. All have far-reaching views over historic Ho Chi Minh City, and each has a unique USP. There's a coffee lounge on the 79th floor, a VR game called Top of Vietnam on the 80th floor, which simulates parachuting off the tower, and an open terrace on the 81st floor. Down below, the tower is home to the Vinpearl Luxury Landmark 81 hotel.
The gleaming ICC was completed on Kowloon’s waterfront in 2010 and claimed the mantle of Hong Kong’s tallest building. From the stable of super-tall building architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), it is 1,587 feet (484m) high and contains offices, luxury residences, hotels and an observation deck known as sky100.
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Step into the lift and within less than a minute you’ll be gazing across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island’s comparatively low sweep of high rises from its 360-degree viewing floor. If budgets allow, be sure to book into the lavish Ritz-Carlton which occupies floors 102-118. As well as having acclaimed restaurants (two Michelin-starred Tin Lung Heen and one-starred Tosca Di Angelo), its piece de resistance is lofty rooftop lounge OZONE, located on the 118th level. It’s the highest rooftop bar in the world.
Piercing the sky of Taiwan’s capital city since 2004, Taipei 101’s striking design was inspired by the natural world. Soaring to the dizzying height of 1,667 feet (508m), it was built to resemble an almighty bamboo stalk and also evokes the traditional, multi-layered form of Chinese pagodas. Located in the Xinyi district, the tower has observation decks on its 88th and 89th floors, offering up unobstructed panoramas of the fast-paced city. Weather willing, there is also an outdoor deck on the 91st and 101st floors. The latter of these has been dubbed 'the world's highest secret garden'.
As well as the mesmerising views, visitors to the top of the tower can marvel at a giant steel orb that dangles suspended by five storeys of steel cable. The world’s largest and heaviest tuned mass damper, it acts as a pendulum to counteract the building's movement due to strong winds. Unlike in other tall buildings, the architects deliberately left the engineering marvel unconcealed – it’s visible between the 88th and 92nd floors. In a part of the world where earthquakes and high winds can be a threat, the weighty ball is one way that the supertall building’s structural integrity is maintained.
Completed in 2018, the curved 1,731-foot (528m) shape of the CITIC Tower commands the skyline in Beijing’s new Central Business District. It's the city’s tallest building and its observation deck is the perfect place to get to grips with the country's vast capital and one of the most populous cities in the world. In a nod to Beijing’s deep-rooted past, its distinctive shape was inspired by a zun, a traditional wine vessel used in China during the Bronze Age. Hence, its commonly used name is China Zun.
Set across the tower’s top floor, the public viewing area includes a rooftop garden and a viewing deck complete with floor-to-ceiling windows. But the CITIC Tower, another from the portfolio of super-tall skyscraper specialists KPF, suffered various delays in construction. Reasons included high-level concerns that the tower's observation deck, and business club below, would compromise security, with its far-reaching views of the city, including over Zhongnanhai, the HQ of the Communist Party of China, which sits next to the Forbidden City.
The colossal Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre is another of China’s super-scrapers: the complex, with offices, a conference centre, a hotel and shops, rises to a height of 1,739 feet (530m). It’s possible to ascend to the building’s top floor and peer over the megalopolis from its observation deck. Guests staying in the ultra-luxury hotel that crowns the building (Rosewood Guangzhou) can also enjoy its endless views.
Once again designed by US firm KPF, the building has been certified as LEED Gold Standard. It features a terracotta facade, which was chosen both for the material’s significance to Chinese culture, and for its environmental advantages – it’s self-cleaning, corrosion-resistant, as well as easily produced and shipped. The supertall building also received a Guinness World Record in 2019 for having the fastest lifts in the world: they run at a speed of 4,134 feet (1,260m) per minute.
Located at the top of New York’s One World Trade Center, the One World Observatory offers up the highest viewpoint in the Big Apple. And what a view it is: right at the tip of Lower Manhattan, it has great views of the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island and the Bay of New York. The thrills begin in the building’s SkyPod lifts, which whisk visitors up 102 storeys in just 47 seconds, as they watch visuals of the development of the city’s skyline from the 1600s to today. The building’s enclosed deck is set over floors 100 to 102.
The building, designed by David Childs, sits on the site of the former Twin Towers, which were destroyed by terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. It became the tallest structure in the Western Hemisphere when it opened in 2014, reaching a vertiginous 1,776 feet (541m). The footprint of its cubic base is identical to the towers of the original World Trade Center and its high, windowless and solid concrete base was designed to protect against ground-based attacks. Its surface is clad in more than 2,000 pieces of shimmering prismatic glass.
A member of the top 10 tallest buildings club, South Korea’s gleaming Lotte World Tower offers the public access to its killer views. Completed in 2017, the tower has 123 floors and is 1,819 feet (554m) high. Designed by New York-based architect James von Klemperer, its curved form takes inspiration from traditional Korean ceramics and writing brushes, and it has an incredible 42,000 glass windows.
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The tower, which contains offices, galleries, retail spaces and a luxury hotel, features the Seoul Sky Observatory at its apex – this includes a skywalk that's the highest glass-floored observatory in the world at 1,568 feet (478m) high and an observation deck where incredible views of Seoul await. Those wishing to go a step further can sign up for the SKYBRIDGE experience, where you'll walk (safely harnessed) across the bridge that connects the two structures right at the peak of the tower. For a more sedate experience, enjoy the thrilling views of the capital from the cafe on its 123rd floor.
Completed in 2017, Shenzhen’s thrusting Ping An Finance Centre is another of China's tallest buildings, measuring 1,965 feet (599m). It’s possible for visitors to ogle the mixed-use skyscraper’s incredible views from the 116th-floor observation deck. High-speed lifts come with visual displays showing how the city has shot up from a small fishing village to a soaring metropolis, while visitors zoom up the length of the building in under a minute. On a clear day, the entrancing views from the south side of the deck sweep all the way to Hong Kong.
Another behemoth from KPF, the super-tall structure’s glinting glass, stone and stainless-steel facade weighs in at around 1,700 metric tonnes. Its tapered design was created with the often-tempestuous local weather in mind, aiming to reduce wind loads by 40%, while stainless steel piers were put in place to form a protective net in case of lightning strikes.
Dominating the holy city of Mecca, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower is an incredible sight and feat of engineering. The 1,972-foot (601m) structure, which was unveiled in 2012 as part of the city’s imposing new Abraj Al-Bait complex, breaks numerous world records. More than five times larger than Big Ben, its giant clock faces are the largest in the world at 141 feet (43m) in diameter, with their minute hands alone reaching around 75 feet (23m). The clock also sits at the top of the tallest clocktower in the world and broadcasts the call to prayer through loudspeakers, which can be heard for miles.
The 120-storey structure is covered with over 98 million glass mosaic tiles and inlaid with 24-carat gold leaf. Two million LEDs also illuminate its clock faces at night, so it can be seen as well as heard at great distances. At a cost of £9 billion ($15bn), the lofty tower was controversially constructed on the site of a 220-year-old Ottoman fortress, which was demolished. At the top of the tower, there's an astronomy museum, including an outdoor observation deck, which allows 360-degree views of the city. The tower also contains a vast 1,618-room Fairmont Hotel, along with a large prayer room (said to be the world’s highest, naturally).
Looming 2,073 feet (632m) above the Lujiazui Financial Zone in Shanghai’s dynamic Pudong district, the Shanghai Tower is China’s tallest structure and the third tallest building in the world. Built in 2015, it has 128 floors of offices, retail space and a hotel. Another of the world’s mind-boggling super-tall structures, the tower holds various records, including the highest restaurant in a building (Heavenly Jin restaurant, situated on the 120th floor) and the tallest viewing platform. Its indoor observation deck is located at a height of 1,841 feet (561m).
It is also the tallest LEED Platinum Certified building. Among its green credentials are the 270 wind turbines located at the top of the tower, (currently the world’s highest), which generate 10% of its electricity. Green spaces are dotted in and around the building too and the project uses 80% less energy for heating and cooling than equivalent towers, according to LEED.
Set to open its observation deck to visitors in the latter stages of 2024, Merdeka 118 (it has 118 storeys) is officially the second tallest building in the world since it topped out last year. It stands above Malaysia’s sprawling capital at 2,227 feet (679m) – that's more than double the height of London's Shard. It will have Southeast Asia’s highest observation deck when it opens.
Positively dwarfing the city’s other lofty landmark, the Petronas Towers, this new super-tall structure contains a Park Hyatt hotel, offices, apartments and retail space. Its sleek design, overseen by Australian firm Fender Katsalidis Architects, features distinctive triangular glass panes, which were inspired by patterns typical in Malaysian arts and crafts. The structure is located on the site where Malaysian independence was declared in 1957 and its name, Merdeka, means 'independent' or 'free' in Malay.
Dubai’s immense Burj Khalifa has held the title of the world’s tallest building since its inauguration in 2010 and remains a spellbinding sight on the city’s dizzying skyline. At a whopping 2,717 feet (828m) and with 163 floors, it positively soars above the other high-rises in the Downtown area. The tower holds an impressive seven Guinness World Records at the time of writing too: tallest building, tallest free-standing structure, highest number of stories, highest occupied floor, highest outdoor observation deck, lift with the longest travel distance and tallest service lift.
There are around a thousand artworks inside the building, many of which line the walls of the glamorous Armani Hotel. Burj Khalifa’s public outdoor observatory is spread across levels 148, 125 and 124 – the highest and smallest deck, known as At The Top SKY, commands premium prices. However, the Burj's reign as the tallest building may come to an end soon, when Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower is completed in 2028 or 2029. The ambitious ultra-tall structure aims to be the first to reach 3,280 feet (1,000m) in height.
A shimmering structure in Shanghai’s ever-evolving Pudong district, Shanghai World Financial Center’s striking shape was derived from a square prism, an ancient Chinese symbol of Earth. Its distinctive opening at the top, designed to reduce wind pressure, has led to its nickname 'the bottle opener'. Construction began in 1997, but the building was only completed in 2008 after severe delays due to the Asian financial crisis. Measuring 1,614 feet (492m), it was the tallest in the city until the Shanghai Tower shot past it in 2015.
Commanding knee-trembling views over the city and the Huangpu River below, the building’s highest observation deck is on the 100th floor. Meanwhile, the observation 'bridge' on the 97th floor – complete with windows above and to both sides – is designed to give visitors the impression of walking through the air. To really enjoy the high life, book a table at Park Hyatt Shanghai’s upscale restaurant and bar, 100 Century Avenue, on the 91st floor of the skyscraper.
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