Lotte Corporation, a construction arm of the Lotte Group, completed the final 123rd floor of the controversial Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, Seoul, on Dec. 22.
Exterior construction wrapped up on Dec. 22 five years and two months (1,880 days) after it started in November 2010. The 123-storey skyscraper is set to be completed and opened by the end of next year, to become the nation’s tallest and the world’s fifth-tallest building if there are no unexpected variables.
With the theme of “The Great Moment,” Lotte Corp. held a ceremony to put up the ridge beam on the 76th floor of the tower at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 22, which was attended by 200 people, including business and government representatives and Lotte Group executives and employees.
The ceremony is a symbolic act traditionally carried out by builders in Korea to wish luck and prosperity to a building after completing exterior construction and before interior construction. A 64-ton tower crane on the top of the building dragged the ridge beam from the ground to the top, while the ceremony was held at the event hall on the 76th floor.
The Lotte World Tower project was initiated by Lotte Group founder and general chairman Shin Kyuk-ho who said, “We cannot show only ancient palaces to foreign tourists forever. We should develop a tourist complex in the Jamsil area and make it a travelers’ world destination of choice.”
The 508-meter high Lotte World Tower is the tallest building in Korea and the fifth tallest building in the world, following the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (828 m, 163 floors), Shanghai Tower (632 m, 128 floors), Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower in Mecca in Saudi Arabia (601 m, 120 floors) and One World Trade Center in New York (541 m, 104 floors).