Rising three hundred and four metres above the Pratunam district of central Bangkok, the Baiyoke Tower II is one of the most prominent individual landmarks of the modern Thai capital and was the tallest building in Thailand continuously from its completion in 1997 through to the completion of the King Power MahaNakhon in 2016. The eighty-eight-floor building combines a high-volume international hotel on the upper floors with a substantial commercial and retail base at the lower levels, alongside a major public observation deck at the upper levels of the structure. The tower was designed by the Thai architectural firm Plan Architect under the personal direction of the Thai tycoon and developer Praneed Liamlertkij, with construction running between 1990 and 1997. The original commission was for the tallest building in Thailand and reflected the wider ambition of the developer to create a permanent landmark of the central Pratunam shopping district. The building was constructed using a combination of reinforced concrete core and steel framing, with the upper twenty-five floors progressively tapering to reduce wind loading on the upper structure. The principal tenant of the tower has been the Baiyoke Sky Hotel since the completion of the building, with the hotel occupying the floors between the twenty-second and the seventy-fourth. The lower commercial floors house the Baiyoke Garment Centre, one of the principal wholesale clothing markets of the central Pratunam fashion district, with several hundred small shops selling Thai-manufactured clothing to wholesale buyers from across the wider South-East Asian region. The principal public observation deck on the seventy-seventh floor provides one of the highest accessible viewing platforms anywhere in central Bangkok. The deck is open to the general public on payment of the standard observation fee, with admission tickets available at the central ticket desk on the ground floor. The interior viewing space on the seventy-seventh floor is supplemented by the famous outdoor revolving observation platform on the seventy-fourth floor, which completes a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation every minute through the principal panoramic viewing positions. The view from the upper observation deck covers most of the central Bangkok metropolitan area. The principal foreground features include the various canals of the central Pratunam district, the nearby Victory Monument roundabout and the principal Skytrain network running along the central commercial spine of the city. The middle distance includes the central business district of Sukhumvit Road, the principal Chulalongkorn University campus and the great central Lumpini Park. The far horizon on clear days includes the western Thonburi bank of the Chao Phraya River and the distant outline of the new Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Ratchaprarop Road 222, Bangkok, Thailand

Opening Date: 01/01/1997