Lifts in the Atrium of the New World Dawan Department Store

Copper Structure On Each Side of the Atrium

In the New World Dawan Department Store on the corner of Nanjing East Road and Henan Middle Road, next to Exit 7 of East Nanjing Road Metro station is this vast atrium with its array of exposed copper coloured lifts, which travel up and down at the centre back of the cavernous space.  Never mind the total waste of prime retail space – this is on one of the two roads to walk along in Shanghai – what you need to focus on is one of two copper coloured structures built at either end of the atrium:

Now there may be other examples of this in the world, but I’ve not seen them, but then I’m not particularly well-travelled…..but what you are seeing is a circular escalator:

I can’t work out how it does it either……..