You don’t have to speak Thai to realize that chang means elephant. This Bangkok landmark opened in 1997 and rises 32 stories over the city’s northern business district. Offices fill two of its towers, while apartments and luxury penthouses rest in its other tower and top floor. Eyes and yellow tusks imbue the structure with a cartoonish quality, but its creators took the design process very seriously. The building honors an animal that Thais revere for helping defend the kingdom early in its history.
15 Buildings That Don’t Look Like Buildings
Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel resembles a giant ballistic missile. As the so-called “Hotel of Doom” prepares to open in 2013, TIME looks at 15 buildings that don’t look like buildings
Chang Building
Full List
15 Buildings That Don't Look like Buildings
- Ryugyong Hotel
- Indira Gandhi Planetarium
- National Fisheries Development Board Building
- Chang Building
- Aldar Properties Headquarters
- Longaberger Basket Company Home Office
- Tianzi Hotel
- National Library of Belarus
- Flame Towers
- Lotus Temple
- Cross # Towers
- Fang Yuan Building
- Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
- The Experience Music Project
- London Aquatics Centre