This shit is right out of a William Gibson novel.
High-Rise Relics: Ghost Structures Haunt Bangkok
Abandoned in 1997 Bust, Rusting Projects Loom; The SV Garden Tower Mess
Wall Street Journal
July 27, 2007
Ten years ago, Sathorn Unique was destined to be one of the city's glitziest addresses. Today, its Corinthian columns and four-story arches are nearly lost amid a tangle of trees and vines. Although workers completed the building's basic structure all the way to the top, its concrete shell starts to peter out about 20 stories up, leaving exposed metal and a half-finished dome on the roof. Steel bars jut out in all directions and mounds of refuse litter the grounds. Inside, two out-of-service escalators climb to nowhere and the smell of urine is overpowering.
The building is one of a dozen or more major "ghost" structures that haunt Bangkok's skyline. Many of them were started in the mid-1990s when Thailand's economy was booming.
The country's economy contracted 10% in 1998, and many of the building projects came to a crashing halt. many of those who failed in the crisis either can't be bothered or can't afford to restart their building projects, leaving Bangkok with more modern ruins than probably any other big city in the world, according to architectural experts.
They include four steel skeletons of 35 stories or more rotting along a busy roadway by Bangkok's Chao Phraya River. Another 35-story high-rise in the middle of the central business district is covered in graffiti of octopuses and space aliens. An ugly pile of rust-covered steel beams and concrete pillars sits next to one of Bangkok's most fashionable hotels.
Then there's the unfinished elevated commuter train, whose hundreds of abandoned rail supports march through the city like giant dominoes. The so-called "Hopewell" rail project died in 1997, too.
