BAOSHAN District will build China’s largest huge-screen cinema at a former container dock by the Yangtze River, officials said yesterday.

The ball-shaped Changtan "huge-screen cinema," with a diameter of about 35 meters, will become the third largest in the world after Sydney and Singapore upon its completion in 2019, the district government said.

The screen will be 22.4 meters wide and 12 meters tall.

The cinema can host 380 viewers and will become a cultural landmark of Changtan, or Shanghai Long Island, which is being transformed into an upmarket residential area and tourist attraction.

The cinema will be covered by glass and aluminum to make it look like a large pearl composed of numerous smaller ones, said Billy Yu, the chief designer for the project. The ball will be surrounded by a commercial complex in the shape of two dolphins.

"The water of the Yangtze will be poured into the complex to make the whole project like two river dolphins playing with a pearl in river," he told a press conference.

The cinema will become the third major cultural venue along with two concert halls that have been planned in the area to cover the shortage of major cultural venues in the northern district, the Baoshan government said.

Underground construction has started on the cinema, the complex and part of the future Changtan project, said Gao Jianqiang, an official with the Shanghai International Port Group, which is taking charge of the project.

Scheduled for an initial completion in 2018, the revamped riverside site, which stretches for 1.8 kilometers along the Yangtze, will feature 4,200 apartments, three parks, assorted malls, restaurants, hotels and kindergartens, according to the group.

The Changtan area will also have a 180-meter-tall sightseeing tower where visitors can observe the whole project as well as the Yangtze River.