Can you guess what is the tallest building in the world now? You will find out the answer if you go to Dubai. However, before the construction of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, from 2004 to 2010 Taipei 101 in Taiwan had fetched the crown as the highest skyscraper in the world. Formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, the building is located in Xinyi District, Taipei. It was awarded LEED Platinum Certification and became the largest green building in the world. Designed by C.Y. Lee and partners and established mainly by KTRT Joint Venture, the building was finished in 2004 and cost approximately 1.7 billion dollars. It was officially opened for public on December 31, 2004 on the New Year’s eve. Ever since, it has become the icon of the modern Taiwan.
The view of Taipei 101 taken from the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall 
Taipei 101 has 101 floors above ground and 5 floors underground. Although the tower has the weight of 700,000 tonnes, it is specially designed to withstand typhoons and earthquakes that often attack Taiwan at unknown times. Integrating some of the feng shui principles in its architecture, the building has a series of eight segments of eight floors each, which is the number associated with good fortune, abundance and prosperity. Inspired by the ancient Chinese architecture, the repeated segments resemble an Asian pagoda and a bamboo plant that has resilience and strength. There are also four coins on each face of the building. 
The observatories are located between the 89th and 91st floors where the 101st floor belongs to a private VIP club called Summit 101. Not much is known about this club. The highest level is at 439 meters. Since number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese culture, the 44th floor was replaced by Level 43, and 42A replaced the actual level 43 to compensate for the skipped floor number. 
Adjoining the tower is a multi-level shopping mall that is home to hundreds of fashionable stores, restaurants and clubs. The tower also houses the world’s fastest elevators (doubledecker) that can reach the maximum speed of 63 km/h.
We did not spend much time in Taipei 101 for we were not interested to pay a sum of money to go to the observatory deck. We have learnt our lesson from our previous visit to Shenzhen’s DiWang Mansion - if you want to know the further story, just read my story about “DiWang Mansion – Shenzhen”-. So we just strolled around the shopping mall doing window-shopping for the items there were very expensive. Overall, if you go to Taipei, a visit to the Taipei 101 is a must.
Sources:
Personal experience and additional information from other online articles
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