Thread: Bangkok : MahaNakhon

Bangkok Rising: Construction to Begin on Bangkok's Tallest Building Designed by Ole Scheeren
Friday, July 24, 2009


The dazzling tower was designed by internationally celebrated German architect Ole Scheeren.

BANGKOK.- In the 125 years since William Le Baron Jenney’s ten-storey Home Insurance Building in Chicago became the world’s first skyscraper, the spectacle of soaring towers has become increasingly common wherever land is scarce, allowing cities to stack life ever taller, denser and more dynamic. Like cathedrals and palaces of the past, skyscrapers today define their cities’ identities as they shape the skyline. As the late critic Herbert Muschamp wrote of these modern wonders, “Contemporary architects reveal the inner world in the process of adorning the outer one.”

Beginning in Fall 2009, the city of Bangkok – home to an estimated 15 million people – will start to embrace an unprecedented new architectural manifestation of its extraordinary ‘inner world’ when construction begins on MahaNakhon, a dazzling tower designed by internationally celebrated German architect Ole Scheeren, Partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). With MahaNakhon, Scheeren, whose many landmark projects include the CCTV Tower in Beijing, has crafted a gleaming 77-storey skyscraper that will be the tallest building in Thailand’s capital. The design moves beyond the traditional formula of a seamless, inert, glossy totem, and instead actively engages the city: MahaNakhon’s pixilated and carved presence embraces and connects to the surrounding urban fabric rather than overpowering it.

Its glittering stacked surfaces, terraces and protrusions will simultaneously create the impression of digital pixilation and echo the irregularity of ancient mountain topography. This architectural geography is conceived to convey the energy, intensity and inclusiveness of Thai society and celebrate Bangkok’s emergence as a true global capital, fitting the Thai meaning of the name MahaNakhon, translated as ‘great metropolis’.

MahaNakhon is developed by PACE Development Co., Ltd. of Bangkok with joint venture partner Industrial Buildings Corporation Public Company Ltd (IBC). The complex, at 150,000 square meters (approximately 1,6 million square feet) seeks to communicate intimately with Bangkok from the ground up: its series of components comprise MahaNakhon Square, a landscaped outdoor public plaza
intended as a new public destination within the city; MahaNakhon Terraces, 10,000 square meters (nearly 110,000 square feet) of luxury retail space with lush gardens and terraces spread over multiple levels for restaurants, cafes and a 24 hour marketplace; The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Bangkok with 200 highly-customized single-level and duplex homes, each offering the atmosphere of a skybox penthouse, managed by The Ritz-Carlton with five-star amenities for all residents; The Bangkok Edition, a signature boutique hotel with 150 hotel rooms, a collaboration between Marriott International and renowned hotelier Ian Schrager; and a multi-level roof-top Sky Bar and restaurant.

Sorapoj Techakraisri, CEO of PACE Development describes MahaNakhon as, “the result of a strongly held wish to do something for Thailand that is both an enduring architectural symbol and a very real and practical example of a firm commitment to, and confidence in, our nation’s long term economic prosperity and cultural diversity. MahaNakhon will be the city’s tallest building, but more significantly it will accurately represent the audacity of Bangkok today – the optimism and strength of Thai culture and the value of that culture to Asia and the rest of the world.”

According to its developers, MahaNakhon will be completed in 2012.

Homes available at MahaNakhon will range in size from 125 square meters (1,350 square feet) to 830 square meters (8,930 square feet) with ceilings up to 3.5 meters high (approximately 11.5 feet). Prices for the residences range from $840,000 USD.

The Building — With its distinctive sculptural appearance, MahaNakhon has been carefully carved to introduce a threedimensional ribbon of architectural ‘pixels’ that circle the tower’s full height, as if excavating portions of the elegant glass curtain wall to reveal the inner life of the building – metaphorically and actually an architecture that encloses and protects its inhabitants while revealing the inner life
of their city. The pixilation gives MahaNakhon an arresting profile on the skyline while generating a set of very special features to house the diverse functions of the building complex in an intelligently strategic way.

Ole Scheeren’s design for MahaNakhon dismantles the typical tower and podium typology to render not a tower in isolation but instead a skyscraper that melds with the city by gradually ‘dissolving’ the mass as it moves vertically between ground and sky. This effect begins with a series of generous, cascading indoor/ outdoor terraces at The Hill – the 7-storey area of tower’s base housing luxury retail and dining. Here MahaNakhon’s architecture is articulated to evoke the shifting protrusions of a mountain landscape. The Hill Terraces fit keenly with the lush, cultivated tropical gardens that give way to the city’s own many green swaths.

MahaNakhon also features an adjacent freestanding 7-storey building known as the Cube, with multi-level indoor/outdoor terraces corresponding to those of the Hill Terraces across the expanse of an outdoor atrium. The outdoor atrium forms a natural valley, offering a network of social spaces with an extensive and carefully selected mix of dining and leisure facilities that serve the general public via a direct above-ground pedestrian link to the main CBD Skytrain station and plaza-level access, The Ritz-Carlton Residences in the main tower of MahaNakhon, as well as guests of The Bangkok Edition Hotel.

MahaNakhon Square, located in front of the tower, is intimately connected to the space between The Hill and Cube. This dynamic public plaza – intended as a meeting place, a spot for planned and spontaneous cultural events – will be a landscaped retreat for the city’s inhabitants, a gathering place, a rare venue for cultural and social interactivity, with direct connection to the Chongnonsi Skytrain station and future rapid bus transit system: an urban oasis that provides refuge from the intense daily clamor of greater Bangkok while offering constant easy access for reconnection to it.

artdaily.com

Will it be done in breeze block or those wafer thin red bricks then rendered over to cover up all the faults and holes?

near nong chongsi skytrain station

BANGKOK | MAHA NAKHON-The Ritz Carlton Residences+Edition Hotel | 313m | 70 fl | 36 fl | Pro - SkyscraperCity

MahaNakhon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Mid

This dynamic public plaza – intended as a meeting place, a spot for planned and spontaneous cultural events – will be a landscaped retreat for the city’s inhabitants, a gathering place, a rare venue for cultural and social interactivity, with direct connection to the Chongnonsi Skytrain station and future rapid bus transit system: an urban oasis that provides refuge from the intense daily clamor of greater Bangkok while offering constant easy access for reconnection to it.

artdaily.com

What a load of crap. Even before Sept 11, cities had moved away from super tall buildings.

Could look nice half finished with the crane sticking out the roof rusting away in typical BKK style

Originally Posted by robuzo

Is Baiyoke going to be painted white, like a certain kind of elephant?

Smithson is correct, but the desire for tall buildings lives on in Asia. Compensating for something, maybe? The Empire State and Chrysler buildings went up in NY just in time for the Great Depression; Petronas Towers and Baiyoke were finished just before the '97 crisis; Tokyo City Hall, the tallest building in Tokyo (a bizarre copy of Notre Dame, btw) was finished just as Japan was starting its "lost decade". It's almost as if these buildings are harbingers of something- or maybe they are just really obvious symbols of, well, a couple of different things, both having to do with ego and no understanding of limitations.

You could be onto something there - Dubai's "super skycraper" springs to mind as well...

Originally Posted by robuzo

It's almost as if these buildings are harbingers of something-

it has been noticed

The skyscraper index, created by economist Andrew Lawrence shows a correlation between the construction of the world's tallest building and the business cycle. Is this just a coincidence, or perhaps do skyscrapers cause business cycles? A theoretical foundation of "Cantillon effects" for the skyscraper index is provided here showing how the basic components of skyscraper construction such as technology are related to key theoretical concepts in economics such as the structure of production. The findings, empirical and theoretical, suggest that the business-cycle theory of the Austrian School of economics has much to contribute to our understanding of business cycles, particularly severe ones.

Skyscrapers and Business Cycles - Mark Thornton - Mises Institute

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by robuzo

It's almost as if these buildings are harbingers of something-

it has been noticed

The skyscraper index, created by economist Andrew Lawrence shows a correlation between the construction of the world's tallest building and the business cycle. Is this just a coincidence, or perhaps do skyscrapers cause business cycles? A theoretical foundation of "Cantillon effects" for the skyscraper index is provided here showing how the basic components of skyscraper construction such as technology are related to key theoretical concepts in economics such as the structure of production. The findings, empirical and theoretical, suggest that the business-cycle theory of the Austrian School of economics has much to contribute to our understanding of business cycles, particularly severe ones.

Skyscrapers and Business Cycles - Mark Thornton - Mises Institute

Thanks, I needed the reminder- knew I got that idea from somewhere. My memory is good, it's just short.

Brilliant erection of high-priced real-estate just in time for the economic crisis really coming home to roost... This ought to be a spectacular fail.

Originally Posted by DaffyDuck

Brilliant erection of high-priced real-estate just in time for the economic crisis really coming home to roost... This ought to be a spectacular fail.

These things get planned during the good times- and the worst ones get planned during the best (or worst) of the good times. There is apparently a ton of commercial real estate just coming online in the US now, and the timing could not be worse.

Smithson is correct, but the desire for tall buildings lives on in Asia. Compensating for something, maybe?

I'd love to be able to live in a building like that, nice high floor, penthouse style. It must have amazing views of the city.

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

I'd love to be able to live in a building like that, nice high floor, penthouse style. It must have amazing views of the city.

I don't expect the prices to be going up on condos with similar great views, so maybe we all will be able to afford one. I saw a flock of cranes go by the window at breakfast one morning at Baiyoke. Spectacular. The woman I was with thought they were airplanes.

I would love one of them extended floor ones.

I might buy one, get the floor done in glass and make it my bedroom.....awesome shagging pad.

Originally Posted by baldrick

near nong chongsi skytrain station

dyslexia Balders...

Originally Posted by klongmaster

Originally Posted by baldrick

near nong chongsi skytrain station

dyslexia Balders...

nah - just care factor -

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

I'd love to be able to live in a building like that, nice high floor, penthouse style. It must have amazing views of the city.

My brother just bought a 2 bedroom at Supalai River Place. Fantastic view and no chance of another condo springing up to block the view from his 21st floor place. Unless the build it in the middle of the river.

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by tjyflhol

I'd love to be able to live in a building like that, nice high floor, penthouse style. It must have amazing views of the city.

My brother just bought a 2 bedroom at Supalai River Place. Fantastic view and no chance of another condo springing up to block the view from his 21st floor place. Unless the build it in the middle of the river.

At the rate BKK is sinking, being on a high floor is probably a good idea. Bangkok sinking as seas rise - Climate Change- msnbc.com

as kindly pointed out by SD , this has raised it's head again .................

https://teakdoor.com/thailand-and-asi...est-tower.html (MahaNakhon : Thailand's tallest tower.)