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Business Insider

Towering skyscrapers often create a city’s iconic skyline, yet sometimes its tallest buildings can fall into disrepair or remain unfinished.
While abandoned structures can become symbolic of a location’s financial or social struggles, cities still have to decide what to do with them. Some are left to rust, others are demolished – and a few become revitalised.
“A lot of these buildings can still have a lot of life left in them,” said Shawn Ursini, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s senior building database manager. “We just maybe need to get a bit more creative as to what their purpose is going forward.”
Here are some of the skyscrapers around Asia that now sit empty or uncompleted – and how they ended up that way.

Sathorn Unique, Bangkok
Popularly known as Thailand’s “Ghost Tower”, this looming structure dates back to 1990. The 47-floor building was only 80 per cent finished when the 1997 Asian financial crisis hit.
Its architect was also charged and then acquitted as part of a murder plot that was never carried out, Architectural Digest reported in 2023.
With the unfinished 185-metre (607 feet) luxury condo in ruins, daredevil travellers risk trespassing and injury to explore the tower. Exposed wires and rusty metals are just a few of the building’s hazards.

Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang
Jutting high above its surrounding buildings, the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong earned the nickname “Hotel of Doom” when it sat empty and incomplete for over a decade in the middle of North Korea’s biggest city.
Work on the 105-storey building began in 1987 under the rule of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather. In 1992, an economic depression following the Soviet Union’s collapse halted construction before windows were installed and the concrete was covered.
Construction has stopped and started several times since, and it’s unclear when the structure will open. In 2008, Reuters reported it would take an estimated US$2 billion to complete the hotel.
“It was bare,” tour operator Simon Cockerell told Australia’s Nine News of the concrete-filled interior after a visit in 2023.
On the outside, though, a new LED screen broadcasts propaganda.

SkyCity, Mandaluyong
This is one project that never got off the ground.
Originally, its developers hoped SkyCity would be the Philippines’ tallest building. They planned for the 77-storey skyscraper to hold a hotel, swanky condos and a bar, Esquire Philippines reported.
Nearby homeowners complained when developers broke ground in 1997 for several reasons, including that the structure, planned at over 300 metres (1,000 feet) tall, would cast a giant shadow.
A lengthy legal battle ensued, and funding for the estimated US$85 million project dried up. The location is now just a large, mossy hole now.

Beirut Trade Centre, Beirut
During the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), snipers took up residence in a number of Beirut buildings in what became known as the “Battle of the Hotels”.
Construction on the 40-storey Beirut Trade Centre, also known as Burj al-Murr or the “tower of bitterness”, began in 1974, just a year before war broke out. At that point, the US$15 million building was 70 per cent complete, Executive Magazine reported in 2004.
In addition to office space, the 140-metre (459 feet) building was designed to hold a cinema and restaurant accessible by helicopter.
Architect Camillo Boano and urban planner Dalia Chabarek described it as a scarred artefact of war that’s “difficult to topple” or renovate.
Several artists have incorporated the unfinished building into their work. In 2018, Jad El Khoury put up a temporary installation in the structure, adding colourful curtains to the windows to transform it into Burj El Hawa, the Tower of Air, according to Archinect.

Goldin Finance 117, Tianjin
Nothing in the vicinity comes close to the height of the rusting, unfinished Goldin Finance tower in Tianjin, a city in northern China. The 597-metre (1,957 feet) structure was meant to hold a hotel, condos and offices.
Construction began on the structure in 2008. A diamond-shaped atrium was supposed to sit atop the building, reminiscent of a glittering gem on top of a walking stick.
From the atrium’s observation deck and restaurant, guests would have had dizzying views of the city’s downtown. Then, in the mid-2010s, Goldin Group, the skyscraper’s developer, started having financial troubles.
At that point, it would have taken US$10 billion to complete the project, Forbes reported in 2022.
“There’s no cladding on the exterior, and the building is just there awaiting a restart of construction,” Ursini said. It still remains empty today.
This article was first published by Business Insider


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From Thailand’s ‘Ghost Tower’ to Pyongyang’s ‘Hotel of Doom’: Asia’s abandoned skyscrapers

Weeds grow on a balcony of the Sathorn Unique building in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: AP

Unattached toilets sit in an open room in the empty Sathorn Unique building in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2017. Photo: AP

The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang pictured in 2002, before windows were installed and its bare concrete covered. Photo: Reuters

A propaganda message is displayed on the facade of the Ryugyong Hotel in 2018. Photo: AP

The unfinished Beirut Trade Centre is seen in the background in 1996 as a banana vendor passes Lebanese soldiers by the side of the road. Photo: AFP

Goldin Finance 117 pictured looming over other high-rise buildings in Tianjin, China, in 2015. Photo: Visual China Group via Getty Images

How mass tourism is killing Malaysia’s coral paradise

A diver documents the extent of coral bleaching on a reef in Malaysia. Photo: Reef Check Malaysia

Boats are seen anchored on Redang Island, where hundreds of tourists arrive each day for unregulated trips. Photo: Reef Check Malaysia

A diver inspects fish living around a reef off Tioman island in Pahang, as part of Reef Check Malaysia’s annual survey of the country’s coral reefs. Photo: Reef Check Malaysia

Adzmin Fatta, Reef Check Malaysia’s programme manager for its Semporna conservation project, on his return from a research trip. Photo: Adzmin Fatta

A coral reef off Tioman Island, Pahang state, that researchers believe was damaged by human activity. Photo: Reef Check Malaysia

Young Indonesians yearn to ‘run away’ overseas for work as frustration grows

A man looks at residential buildings in Jakarta. Photo: AFP

Indonesian students at an internet cafe in Jakarta. The government says it is prepared to help young Indonesians gain the skills required for overseas jobs. Photo: AP

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A view of central Jakarta. Some Indonesians working overseas say they miss Indonesia’s way of life and food. Photo: Reuters

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Anderson Serangoon Junior College. Photo: Facebook/Anderson Serangoon Junior College

In Japan, US military feels the squeeze as accident fears grow at heliport surrounded by skyscrapers

A view of Tokyo’s Roppongi district, home to a sprawling nightlife and shopping area near the Hardy Barracks heliport. Photo: AP

A military helicopter flies over Tokyo in 2020. The completion of new tower blocks in the Japanese capital will further restrict air access to the Hardy Barracks heliport that’s used by the US. Photo: AFP

MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft fly above Sydney. Activists in Japan claim the aircraft have a poor safety record. Photo: US Marine Corps via AFP

News

Asia

These towering structures, once symbols of ambition, now stand as haunting reminders of economic turmoil and halted dreams


These towering structures, once symbols of ambition, now stand as haunting reminders of economic turmoil and halted dreams.
