As much as I get ‘jelly legs’ and a slightly giddy feeling looking down from great heights, I’m also drawn to observation platforms on very tall buildings, where I can experience those feelings while enjoying dramatic (and sometimes revealing) views.
Bangkok is a smog champion, often creating unusual photo effects…
And that’s what brought me to the top of Mahanakhon, Bangkok’s first- or second-tallest (we’ll get to that in a bit) building, the one that had intrigued me for days because at a first glance, and a second, and even a third, it appears to be falling apart.
Of course, it isn’t—it’s all clever design and engineering, described by one writer as “a square prism with the appearance of a rough spiral with cuboidal surfaces cut into the side of the building. The building features a pixelated ribbon that swirls around the exterior, peeling back its surface layer to expose an inner layer, creating balconies with views of the city. The glass walls are divided horizontally and vertically, adding to the building’s ‘pixelated’ and ‘unfinished’ appearance.” Oh, yeah.
Its companion building, ‘The Cube’ looks a bit like a fallen piece of the tower
Speaking of unfinished, here’s the Sathorn Unique Tower, which was 80% finished when a 1997 fiscal crisis stopped construction. Work has never been resumed, and despite warnings, it’s popular with ‘urban adventurers;’ and featured in Jack Whitehall’s ‘Travels with My Father.’
Mahanakhon, which is part of the city’s formal name of Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, opened in 2016 after five years of construction, and got to hold the official ‘tallest’ title for about a year and a half, when it was topped by the Magnolia Residences. When it opened, it had several high-end European restaurants and stores, but when King Power bought the building and added its name, the restaurants closed and new plans are in the works.
Now about Magnolia, which is part of the huge Iconsiam shopping complex. It is officially three metres taller at 317 metres, but some people (and I’ll include myself) would still give Mahanakhon the honor. Those ‘rooftop tailfins’ seem a bit like cheating!
At 314 metres, King Power Mahanakhon has the tallest usable space, with a rooftop cafe and observation seating at the 314 metre mark as part of the observation deck area. There’s also a glass floor up there for those who are willing to use it; not me! I got shivers looking at it, much less walking out onto it.
George G recognized the location from this One-Clue Mystery photo
Approaching the very modern building from ground level, I first encountered two reminders that this was Thailand, and not some random skyscraper city somewhere else: A spirit house, with offerings to the guardian spirits who inhabit the site, and a many-headed elephant that is the mount of the Hindu god Indra when he descends from the heavens. This one has 33 heads.
The trip to the top started with a glossy neon-and-mirror entry way, followed by a swift trip to the first observation floor in an elevator whose walls act as an LCD screen for pop culture cartoon characters headed to the top.
Once at the first level, there are large open spaces and floor-to-ceiling windows which are great for views, but not so great for photography because of reflections in the glass. Add that to the smog, and… well… The spaces with the blue doors are meant to be a reflection-free area, I was told, but it didn’t seem to help.
Fortunately, there’s an elevator and stairs to the highest level, where there is no glass in the way (although there are barriers to keep visitors from falling or jumping over. The glass elevator shaft and stairwell made interesting shots in themselves.
Circling the observation area and looking down, it’s quite clear that Bangkok has some of the densest development of tall buildings anywhere, even though they are spread unevenly across the city, interspersed with older and lower-density areas,
The city is divided by the Chao Phraya River, which carries a large volume of freight along with dozens of ferry and waterbus routes and thousands of smaller ‘longtail’ boats; it’s also become one of the focuses for skyscraper builders, with numbers of very tall buildings right at the water’s edge.
And, it seems clear, that unless you are looking straight down, clear is what the distant view will not be. Nonetheless, the views were fantastic and, after a while, the jelly legs calmed down.
