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In the course of our daily reporting, we often uncover unusual projects, places, or connections that don't make the final cut. Instead of keeping it to ourselves, we're pleased to share our weekly Architrivia.
Begun in 1990, the Salthorn Unique Tower was originally designed as a 47-storey, 600-unit residential highrise, under the direction of lead architect and developer Rangsan Torsuwan. The post-modernist structure was meant to be a major landmark project for the capital, at a time when Bangkok's skyline was rising alongside the city's growing fortunes.
But in 1993 in the wake of criminal allegations brought against Rangsan Torsuwan for his key role within the supposed failed murder plot against President of the Supreme Court Praman Chansue, and the ensuing drawn-out legal battle that finally ended in Torsuwan's acquittal in 2010, the project was abandoned and the empty shell has been left to the elements for the last two decades.
Abandoned since the mid 90s, the 80-percent-complete Salthorn Unique Tower has been left as a ghost tower. It is the largest of at least a dozen similarly abandoned projects in Bangkok, a permanent reminder of the often turbulent economic history of Thailand.
Today a prime example of an urban explorer's paradise, the Salthorn Unique Tower has become a magnet for those willing to risk life and limb, not to mention a stiff fine, in order to climb to the top of the tower, since illegal entry allows for breathtaking views of the city.
Believed by some to be haunted, owing to its alleged construction atop a former cemetery, the structure today exists as a massive concrete tombstone on the Bangkok skyline, its story clouded by equal amounts conjecture and harsh economic realities that haunt the city to this day.
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