canton tower (also known as guangzhou tv & sightseeing tower is a tower near chigang pagoda, haizhu district, guangzhou, guangdong, china. it was topped-out in 2009 and became operational on september 29, 2010 for the 2010 asian games
the canton tower, in chinese called guǎngzhōu tǎ (also called guangzhou tv & sightseeing tower) is the second tallest structure in the world after burj dubai in dubai, uae. the canton tower is designed by the dutch architects mark hemel and barbara kuit of information based architecture together with engineers arup, the international design, engineering and business consulting firm headquartered in london, uk. 2004 information based architecture and arup won the international competition, in which many of the world's larger architectural offices participated. the same year the iba - arup team in amsterdam developed the tower's concept design. in later stages iba cooperated mainly with the local chinese offices of arup and a local design institute. the tower although not fully completed yet is since 1 october 2010 open to the public.
for a long time the city-government of guangzhou wavered to decide on the guangzhou tv & sightseeing tower's name. on 29 september 2010 finally came the decision. on this day it was officially announced that it was simply going to be called canton tower, after the city's former name.
