From Thailand’s ‘Ghost Tower’ to Pyongyang’s ‘Hotel of Doom’: Asia’s abandoned skyscrapers
These towering structures, once symbols of ambition, now stand as haunting reminders of economic turmoil and halted dreams
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.
