Hotels: love ’em or hate ’em, we sure stay in them a lot. Some are works of pure architectural beauty, while others are just plain ugly. We’ve scoured the internet and found the world’s ugliest hotels. Let’s hope you don’t have to stay in these places!
Beauty is always usually in the eye of the beholder and many of the interesting and unique…and ugly…hotels on this list were (and maybe are, to some) considered beautiful. However, with time and retrospection, the tables have turned a bit on most of them leaving many of us to conclude that they were, well, simply ugly. Others, however, are just ugly from day 1.
We will let you decide though. Here are the world’s ugliest hotels.
Holiday Inn, Raleigh
This is a Holiday Inn Raleigh Downtown that is apparently scheduled to be demolished in 2023 and replaced with a mixed-use building that will include a Kimpton Hotel as well.
Hotel Sofitel in Tokyo Japan
The unusual-shaped building was conceived in the early 90’s by Japanese architect Kiyonori Kikutake and is inspired by the Metabolist movement. It was later acquired by the Accor Hotel group. The bizarre cantilevered build was demolished in the mid-2000s.
According to Mike Grist, the building was, “a series of 5 stacked trapezoids, it was intended to embody the Shinto concept of the Tree of Life, a lightning-bolt-shaped cut of white zig-zag cloth tied around the thick boles of ancient trees.”
Comfort Hotel in Porsgrunn, Norway
Part of the Choice Hotels family, this Comfort Hotel takes a page out of our days building legos as kids, at least according to one Redditor.
The mismatched and misaligned windows create a sense of disorder which leaves all a bit confused. Did a toddler create this? However, as Comfort Hotels go around the world, this one is actually pretty modern. We’d stay there.
Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea
The now-hideous looking hotel was started in 1987 and never finished. Just like the promise of Communism…it didn’t deliver. The 1080-foot-tall building is the tallest building in North Korea and a beacon of the utter failure of their government. Apparently now it houses an LED display on the exterior showing movie clips.
We bet that if North Korea ever flipped from Dictator to literally any other form of government Marriott swoops in and Bonvoys the heck out of this building.
Marques de Riscal Ciudad Del Vino in Spain
The Marques de Riscal Ciudad Del Vino looks like someone made the mistake of drinking Gold Schlager and eating fruit rollups, then puked it back out. We are all for creative architecture, but this is just nutty.
The wine-inspired property was designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry who appears to have imbibed a bit during the process.
Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco
It’s hideous, isn’t it? Absolutely hideous. The once described “temple of hermetic urbanism” is now just weird. Its lobby was once used in the movie the Towering Inferno now it’s just home to sad business travelers who are too deep into Hyatt’s loyalty program to make the switch to Marriott.
Vaguely resembles a spaceship, in our opinion, and an ugly one at that. You can read more about this iconic hotel here – including checking out the interior.
Dr. Evil’s Hotel – the Lang Stracht Hotel in Scotland
When Dr. Evil travels to Scotland, this is the hotel he stays at. The Lang Straht Hotel is located in Aberdeen, Scotland and is a good example of Brutalism architecture gone wrong. Some have suggested it resembles a broken-down spaceship and they are not wrong.
Now part of the Best Western family of hotels, you’d be hard pressed to find a picture of the exterior of the hotel on their booking site.
First World Hotel & Plaza in Malaysia
Currently, the First World Hotel & Plaza holds the record as the largest hotel in the world with around 7,500 rooms, however, if the Abraj Kudai is ever finished in Saudia Arabia it will set the bar at 10,000 rooms.
The First World Hotel & Plaza (besides having a terrible name) is not exactly an ugly building from a structural perspective as much as the chaotic color scheme it employs. It’s as if the guys who built the Atlantis Hotel decided to let their kids pick out the paint for their next project and asked an engineer to choose the name.
The result? The First World Hotel.
The Jello Mold Hotel aka the Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi
The design of this property is intended as an homage to the veils popular in the region, and while, at some angles, the design can be impressive, at other angles and when lit in certain colors, it just looks like a blob of Jello.
The Yas Hotel is part of the W family of hotels and is a very impressive property in a part of the world that knows few architectural boundaries.
So, what did we miss? Do you have a submission for our list of the world’s ugliest hotels? Leave us a comment below or tweet us a picture!
1 comment
Marques de Riscal is a gorgeous hotel designed by Frank Gehry. I have stayed there and it definitely is eye catching in the landscape but beautiful. Shame it is on this list with some of the other monstrosities on this list.