For Bangkok’s New Icon, MahaNakhon Tower, Form Follows Fiction

By: | October 12th, 2016

MahaNakhon Tower

MahaNakhon Tower (Image Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren http://buro-os.com/news/)

In a TED talk (see below), architect Ole Scheeren replaced the famous phrase “form follows function” with “form follows fiction,” and his new Bangkok creation is a reflection of this thinking.

A New Urban Landmark for Thailand

The MahaNakhon (Thai: มหานคร) Tower, at 77 stories and 1,030 feet (313.9 meters) tall, is now the tallest building in Bangkok, Thailand, but that’s not all. MahaNakhon is contemporary architecture with a digital touch and now Bangkok’s most recognizable landmark. The building was christened on August 29, 2016 and was designed by German architect Ole Scheeren who describes it as a “carefully carved three-dimensional ribbon of architectural pixels that coil up the tower’s full height and reveal the inner life of the building.” Scheeren also designed The Interlace in Singapore, winner of the World Building of the Year Award in 2015.

The Interlace

The Interlace (Image Courtesy www.worldarchitecturefestival.com)

Ole Scheeren, 45, principal at Buro Old Scheeren, is a skyscraper architect. His firm was hired by The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, founded by Dutch architect Ren Koolhaus. Buro Ole Scheeren has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, and London. Scheeren is a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong.

In the following TED Talk, Ole Scheeren explains “Why Great Architecture Should Tell a Story.”

David Russell Schilling

David enjoys writing about high technology and its potential to make life better for all who inhabit planet earth.

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