In the early 1990s, the tallest building in Shanghai was the 24-story Park Hotel, an art deco relic built in 1934.
Now, when night falls over Pudong, on the east bank of the Huangpu River, the stratospheric towers light up one after another in a stunning display of neon, LEDs, and shimmering screen imagery.
The most breathtaking newcomer to the skyline is the 128-story Shanghai Tower, which, when it was completed in 2015, became the second-tallest building in the world.
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This futuristic new skyscraper glows green, then purple, then yellow, then red, rising more than 2,000 feet into the air: an exclamation point on land that, little more than two decades ago, was marshland and farmland.
As Shanghai keeps producing architecture worthy of science fiction, it comes as no surprise that its present has become the future in films like the Oscar-winning "Her" and the Bruce Willis blockbuster "Looper."
A trip to this place these days can change the way you picture the future, and we captured some of its most surreal scenes.
Dave Tacon is a Walkley Award-winning photographer and writer based in Shanghai.
