The Shanghai Tower is China's tallest building, and the second tallest in the world after Dubai's Burj Khalifa. Developers started building the 128-storey supertall skyscraper in end-2008, and finished in mid-2015.
Shanghai-based photographer Joe Nafis started capturing the building's progress in 2011, and put together this spectacular timelapse -- a task that took an estimated 1,000 hours from shooting to processing, he said.
As the building goes up, the twirling of the cranes at the top look like knitting needles working to bring the monstrous tower up.
The building missed its deadline to open to the public, and remains closed for now for unreported reasons.
