The Story Behind China’s 600-Metre Abandoned Skyscraper

[Music] it's a record china never wanted to hold when construction began 13 years ago golden finance 117 in tianjin was going to be the fifth tallest skyscraper ever built but today it's probably most well known as that building that those daredevils on youtube climbed despite reaching its full height of 597 metres in 2015 the site was suddenly deserted shortly afterwards and the project remains unfinished to this day with communication drying up in 2018 and no official word on when or even if the project will ever be completed many have come to wonder how one of the world's strongest economies with the fastest rate of urbanization in history became home to the world's tallest ghost [Music] scraper proposed back in 2008 when cities across china were vying for their place on the world stage golden finance 117 was to be the centerpiece of billionaire pan sutong's golden metropolitan scheme a 1.8 square kilometer high-end residential and central business district about eight kilometers from downtown tianjin with multiple residential and commercial towers french and italian style manners a wine museum extensive gardens and even a polo club the scheme was aimed at the super rich and the landmark skyscraper was to be the jewel in the crown we mean that quite literally the building was to be topped with a three-story diamond-shaped atrium which would have been home to the world's highest observation deck pool restaurant and skypar [Music] likened to a walking stick the mixed-use tower would contain 128 floors above ground with 117 of them housing hotel and commercial space as well as providing the ingenious source of the building's name 11 dedicated to mechanical and operational services and a further four levels below ground unique among many of the world's tallest buildings golden finance 117 was to be habitable up to its highest point foregoing the addition of any vanity height that seems to become commonplace among many of today's tallest skyscrapers in fact when comparing it with other structures purely on the highest habitable floor the building would have been second only to the burj khalifa with just half a meter in it lacking any major setbacks to disrupt wind loads and with its height to width ratio of 9.5 to 1 exceeding the limit set by china's seismic code the building should have been highly susceptible to lateral forces but it was designed to resist them not unlike the structural system used at malaysia's medeca pmb118 golden finance 117 was designed with a perimeter frame consisting of tapering mega columns mega braces and transfer trusses all supported by and tied back to a full height reinforced concrete core creating a near immovable structure but while on the surface the skyscraper appeared no different to many of the others rising across china at that time underneath it seems like the cards were stacked against it from the outset to maintain the integrity of the chinese property market new developers aren't permitted to start pre-sales on their schemes until authorities have inspected and signed off on the finished product with exemptions typically only granted to established and usually state-owned firms at the time golden properties was a publicly listed hong kong-based company and a relatively new player in the mainland chinese market it had to fully self-finance the entire 10 billion us dollar master plan and it wouldn't be able to begin recovering its investment until each building was completed this put the entire scheme in a precarious situation from the beginning but if the developer was able to put up the capital investment and there were no major disruptions to markets during construction then the rewards would be worth it they went ahead and construction began on the 18th of august 2008. while the global financial crisis didn't topple china's economy it did make it wobble golden feared the cooling chinese property markets and with substantial investments across europe and the us to worry about as well construction at golden finance 117 was halted in january 2010 the property market regained its footing by 2011 and with an asset to liability ratio at the time of roughly four to one the company decided to continue work on the tower with the expectation that it could be completed and ready to start sales as the market reached its next natural peak the project marched skyward but the slow recovery of international markets compared to china put the golden group in a vulnerable situation with its asset to liability ratio reduced to almost one to one the company was effectively all in on gold in finance 117 and desperately needed to complete the project before the next economic hit like something out of a movie after staving off the worst of the global financial crisis june 2015 saw china's stock bubble burst wiping a third off the shanghai stock exchange's value in a month and the market volatility persisted until early 2016. while not a full-blown crisis the damage was already done with nothing left in reserves to ride out the turbulent period golden's own share price on the hong kong stock exchange plummeted and company chairman pan sutong with a 64 stake in the business reportedly lost an eye-watering 13 billion us dollars of his own fortune the topping out ceremony in september was meant to reignite confidence in the project but by december 2015 all work had ceased in 2018 it seemed to restart and hopes began to rise but the china state construction engineering corporation then left again taking all of its company's signage with it on the surface you're probably thinking that the fate of golden finance 117 was down to a series of unfortunate events and a market that tends to favor state-owned companies but even when it was put up for sale with a handful of other golden metropolitan assets it didn't attract much attention and no attempt was made to resurrect it it had all the makings of a high-end development aimed at the super-rich but the project's location on former industrial land on the outskirts of one of china's second-tier cities meant that the appeal for those that could actually afford it simply wasn't there it was like attempting to build new york's hudson yards on the outskirts of philadelphia it's like golden tried to get in early on a city it later expected to thrive it relied heavily on china's continued growth favorable market conditions and the builder and they will come philosophy the firm took a gamble on an ambitious scheme and lost like pyongyang's infamous hotel golden finance 117 looks set to stand not as a beacon for an emerging city but as a monument and cautionary tale of over-ambition if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to the b1m

Channel: The B1M

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Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, china, skyscraper, megatall, worlds tallest, abandoned building, gfc, hong kong, tianjin, goldin, goldin finance 117, goldin proprties, pan sutong, burj khalifa, dubai, shanghai

Id: lLzJpCd5X9g

Length: 7min 52sec (472 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021