Soaring 2,073 feet in the air, the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower, the second-tallest building in the world, now lays claim to top honors of another sort: the inaugural 2016 American Architecture Prize (AAP) for Architectural Design of the Year. Completed in January, the 121-story mixed-use building is boldly modern yet strongly connected to its area’s cultural identity, making “an immediate and profound impact on the country’s perceptions of how a skyscraper can contribute to a city, a country, and a culture,” according to the AAP. Nine distinct zones create a vertical city rising through the cylindrical structure, which boasts a second exterior façade that spirals 120 degrees and encases a series of public garden spaces. The transparent double skins provide a visual link between the building’s surroundings and its interior while maximizing natural light.

The skyscraper was awarded the prize during a recent ceremony at New York’s Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Created to honor designs in architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture, the AAP hopes to advance appreciation of architecture worldwide. Of the Shanghai Tower, the organization says, “Powerful in form yet delicate in appearance, [the building] would be a graceful addition to any skyline, but its function, identify, and symbolism are firmly rooted in the needs of its specific site.”