Ryugyong Hotel; Pyongyang, North Korea

I quite like how they finished off the top of the building with hockey stick tape.

From a design perspective, this is far from the worst on this list. Its massive scale at the end of a wide promenade reminds me of Mussolini's Rome, or perhaps Metropolis. The pyramid-like shape may be a bit gaudy, but less-so than the one in Vegas. As a long-time Bostonian, I can't really fault North Korea for a 20 year construction project gone wrong. The Big Dig took almost my entire 27 year life to complete, costing taxpayers huge amounts of money and the federal government even more. Weeks after opening it decapitated someone when tiles started falling from the ceiling in the tunnel thanks to ill-conceived plan changes and bad epoxy. Whoops. All that said, if you're spending time in North Korea, you should have bigger concerns than the attractiveness or construction quality of your hotel.

Hilarious extension-of-my-manhood mentality meets paramilitary dictator efficiency. NK is pretty much off limits to most Westerners, but reports indicate that many of the floors simply do not or or aren't functional. Hideous. Symbolic of a theological prison-state that devours people for the sake of an idea. Horrible on many levels.

Space Mountain meets Transamerica Pyramid meets the Luxor meets the fortress under the volcano. I'd love to go and shoot photos of it, just to document how strange it is. The chances of my checking in in Pyongyang are pretty low, though.