A Chinese construction company has claimed it is the fastest builder in the world after erecting a 57-storey skyscraper in just 19 working days, according to press reports.

The Broad Sustainable Building Company put up a rectangular, glass-and-steel building called Mini Sky City in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province in south-central China. The building has 19 atriums, 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 people.

A time-lapse YouTube video of the project being built has gone viral in China and across the world, thanks to international news organisations like The Guardian and The Daily Mail sharing them online.

The builder used a modular method that allowed it to assemble three floors per day, working in two phases, separated by a break during winter.

The firm now says it has ambitions to build the world’s tallest skyscraper at 220 floors in only three months.

While modular construction has been used for high-rise apartment blocks around the world, including in the UK and the US, there has been some criticism about the method, with experts saying that it could lead to cityscapes with overly uniform architecture.