Taipei 101: Taiwan’s Landmark Tower and What to Know Before You Go

From almost anywhere in Taipei, one building keeps appearing at the end of the street: a slim green-glass tower built in stacked tiers, like a stalk of bamboo or a stretched pagoda, rising far above everything around it in the Xinyi district. Taipei 101 is 508 metres tall to the tip of its spire, and when it opened it was the tallest building in the world. It is also one of the more thoughtful supertall towers ever built, full of symbolism drawn from Chinese tradition and engineered to stand up to typhoons and earthquakes. This guide explains how to read its design, how the famous damper near its top works, and what a visit to the observatory involves for mature travellers. On Day 3 of our Taiwan Lantern Festival small group tour, the group visits Taipei 101 in the afternoon to take in its architecture from the ground.

How Taipei 101 came to be built

The tower was conceived in the late 1990s as the Taipei Financial Center, the name it still carried during construction. The project was proposed in 1997, building work began in 1999, the structure was topped out in 2003 and the tower was completed in 2004. It was designed by the Taipei firm C.Y. Lee & Partners, led by the architect C.Y. Lee, with structural engineering by Evergreen Consulting Engineering and the American firm Thornton Tomasetti as peer reviewers.

At its official opening, Taipei 101 overtook the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur as the world’s tallest building, and it held that title until the Burj Khalifa in Dubai opened in 2010. It has 101 storeys above ground, which gives the building its name, and five basement levels beneath a six-storey shopping mall at its foot. The mall, the office floors and the observatory near the top all operate today, so the tower is a working building rather than a monument.

The ambition was civic as much as commercial. The building’s operators compare it to the Empire State Building in New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, landmarks that changed how their cities were seen. Whatever you make of the comparison, the tower has become the shorthand image of modern Taipei.

Reading the design of Taipei 101

The key to the building is the number eight. In Chinese, the word for eight sounds like the word for prosperity, and C.Y. Lee built the tower out of eight stacked units of eight floors each. Each unit flares slightly outward as it rises, then the next begins above it, so the outline climbs in a rhythm of steps. The architect’s own description, published by the building’s operator, compares this to bamboo growing joint by joint, strong but flexible, and to a flower opening; the more common reading, noted by Britannica, is an elongated pagoda.

Look lower down and you will find more symbols. The Institution of Civil Engineers notes that ruyi patterns, the curling cloud-like motif of an auspicious sceptre, appear several times on the exterior, and that feng shui shaped the building’s orientation.

The segmented form is not purely decorative. According to the operator, breaking the tower into eight-floor units helps disperse the down-draughts that very tall buildings drive onto the streets below, and the tower’s outline was refined with wind engineers to reduce the loads on the structure, since the site is exposed to typhoons. Beneath it, 380 piles, each 1.5 metres across, reach 80 metres into the ground, the deepest of them driven 30 metres into bedrock.

The damper: a 660-tonne pendulum

The most famous single object in Taipei 101 is the tuned mass damper. It is a steel sphere weighing about 660 tonnes and some 5.5 metres across, hung on eight cables from the 92nd floor, so that it swings in the space between the 87th and 92nd floors near the centre of the building. When strong winds or an earthquake push the tower one way, the heavy ball lags behind and moves the other way, absorbing much of the motion. The operator explains that the damper reduces the slight, constant sway that would otherwise make people in the building uncomfortable, and that in a typhoon or earthquake it suppresses the worst of the swinging.

What makes it unusual is that you can see it. Many tall buildings have dampers, but they are usually hidden in plant rooms. Here the sphere is painted gold and displayed to the public from the observatory floors, and the operator describes it as the largest and heaviest wind damper in the world and the only one of its kind on public display. It has even inspired the tower’s own family of cartoon mascots, the Damper Babies. Taiwan sits in one of the most seismically active regions on earth, and seeing the ball in person is a good way to understand how seriously the building’s engineers had to take that fact.

What does the Taipei 101 observatory involve?

A visit to the observatory means a fast lift ride to the indoor viewing floor on the 89th floor, 382 metres above the city, followed by as much time as you like walking its glass-walled circuit. The observatory lifts, built by Toshiba, were designated the world’s fastest when the building opened, rising at up to 1,010 metres per minute in pressurised cars designed for passenger comfort. On the 89th floor you get a 360-degree view across the Taipei basin to the ring of mountains around it, with high-powered telescopes, an audio and video guide activated by QR code, a souvenir shop and what the operator calls the world’s highest postbox. The damper can be seen from the observatory floors.

Beyond the 89th floor there are further options. The outdoor observatory on the 91st floor opens only when the weather allows. At the time of writing, the official site also sells an additional ticket for the 101st floor, and a guided experience called Skyline 460 on an open-air platform 460 metres up, which is by reservation only, requires participants to wear safety equipment, asks visitors not to wear high heels or skirts, and may be cancelled in poor weather. Check the official Taipei 101 website for the current options before you go.

Is the Taipei 101 observatory suitable for mature travellers?

Yes: the main 89th-floor observatory is indoors, reached entirely by lift, and involves no more walking than a large museum gallery, so most mature travellers will manage it comfortably. The ride up is very quick, and anyone sensitive to pressure changes may want to swallow or yawn on the way, although the cabins are pressurised. The outdoor 91st floor and the Skyline 460 platform are more exposed and are better suited to those with a good head for heights. One practical point: at the time of writing, the official site says discounted concession tickets, including those for older visitors, can only be bought in person at the ticket counter on production of a valid Taiwan ID, so overseas visitors should expect to pay the full adult rate.

How do you avoid the queues at Taipei 101?

Buy a full-price ticket online in advance and aim for a weekday, ideally on a clear day. At the time of writing, full-price tickets can be bought online, while the official site directs other visitors to the observatory ticket counter on the first floor of the office tower. Cloud often wraps the upper floors, so it is worth checking the weather on the morning you plan to go; a hazy day can reduce the view to little more than the nearest streets. The observatory is open daily into the evening at the time of writing, and a late visit lets you watch the city lights come on, but check current opening hours on the official site.

Seeing Taipei 101 from outside

You do not need to go up the tower to appreciate it, and some of the best views are from a distance. At its base the tower rises from the shopping mall at its foot; the official site directs visitors arriving by metro to Exit 4 of Taipei 101/World Trade Center station on the red Xinyi line. From the surrounding avenues of the Xinyi district, the stacked modules read most clearly.

For the classic view, Taipei residents head for Xiangshan, often called Elephant Mountain, a sandstone hill on the south-eastern edge of the Xinyi district. Taipei’s official tourism site describes the Six Giant Rocks on its trail as a favourite photography spot, with Taipei 101 and the Xinyi towers spread out below. It is a proper hiking trail rather than a stroll, so it suits those comfortable with a steady climb.

After dark the tower changes character. Its LED lighting shows a different colour each day, with an hourly light show, and the operator programmes special displays for festivals through the year. The New Year’s Eve fireworks launched from the tower have become a Taipei tradition.

How long do you need at Taipei 101?

Allow about an hour and a half to two hours for the observatory, including queuing, the lift and time to walk the full circuit and look at the damper. If you are content to see the tower from outside, half an hour around its base and the nearby plazas is enough to take in the design. Add more time if you want to browse the mall or eat in the food court at its foot.

Taipei 101 on Day 3 of the tour

Taipei 101 is part of a full day exploring the city on Day 3 of the Lantern Festival tour, the day after the group travels to the gold-mining villages of Chiufen and to Pingxi to watch thousands of sky lanterns released into the night sky; our guide to the Taiwan Lantern Festival and its traditions explains the background. The day begins at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, built in 1980 to commemorate the former president, and continues to the National Palace Museum and its collection of Chinese art, with a visit to the memorial residence of the painter Chang Dai-ch’ien if time allows.

After lunch, the group sees the modern architecture of Taipei 101 from the ground. Observatory access is not included in the tour. The tour page recommends arriving in Taipei a day early to allow for travel delays, and that spare day is a natural time to go up if you would like to. The day ends with the culinary delights of the Raohe Night Market and its Ciyou Temple, a temple the itinerary spells Tsiyao.

The tour is rated Level 2, Moderate, with three to five hours of activity a day and up to 8 kilometres of walking on uneven ground, and an Odyssey Program Leader travels with the group. If you are weighing up the practical side of a trip, see our answers to common questions about travelling in Taiwan.

Taipei 101 rewards a little background. Once you know about the eight modules, the ruyi motifs and the golden sphere swinging near its summit, the tower stops being simply very tall and becomes a building with a clear point of view. On the Taiwan Lantern Festival small group tour, a small group of up to 16 travellers sees it as part of a day that runs from Taiwan’s memorials and museums to its liveliest night market.