Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong

The Bank of China Tower stands in Hong Kong's Central district, completed in 1990 to a design by the architect I. M. Pei, commissioned to mark the bank's rising presence in the territory ahead of the 1997 handover to China. Its distinctive triangulated form rises from a square base that is progressively sliced away in a series of angled setbacks, producing four vertical prisms of differing heights that give the tower its faceted, crystalline profile. The structure relies on an external steel truss framework, rather than a conventional internal steel frame, to carry loads down through its four corner columns, letting the tower be built with markedly less structural steel than a conventional skyscraper of comparable height. At 367.4 meters to its pinnacles, it was the tallest building outside the United States at the time of its completion, holding that distinction until later towers in Asia surpassed it. Its sharp angular geometry drew feng shui criticism in Hong Kong, where some read its edges as directing negative energy toward neighboring buildings.