Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur

The hotel when rich guests were still here to stay

The Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur is a 122 meter hotel located in the heart of Downtown Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Set between the flowering gardens of the KLCC Park and the dramatic heights of the Petronas Towers, Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur offers impressive views, fabulous facilities and a convenient central location. The five-star luxury hotel in the heart of the city enjoys elegant interiors, a swimming pool, a spa, spacious rooms and a wealth of dining options. But without any more rich visitors coming to stay, how long can the 5 star hotel last against the only visitor, Mother Nature?

1 day after people: During the night, the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur gives off an iconic brown glow into the lights of KLCC. But as the power generators cease to function, the tower powers off, leaving all the rooms dark, the swimming pool without any pumped water and the spa and lobby without any power.

2 weeks after people: Rodents and ants are checking into the 5-star hotel in search of food in the now empty restaurants. The swimming pool has also attracted nearby birds and mosquitos, which they wage a bitter war on who gets it. Eventually the mosquitos win in numbers, and the swimming pool slowly becomes infested.

5 months after people: Torrential rain has caused the Klang River to flood the base of the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur, bringing in seeds, some unlucky cars and some other tiny insects who were dragged along the waters. Not in a thousand years has the Klang River flooded to such a massive extent. When the flood is over, the damage caused is nearly thrice that of the 1971 Kuala Lumpur floods. The lobby is now filled with seeds that will gradually grow, as well as some cars that broke some windows at the base when the floods swept them away and are now inside of the lobby, left to deteriorate slowly.

5 years after people: The brown paint of the tower is beginning to chip away and the structural supports are beginning to corrode and weaken, as plants are left to grow in the lobby and on the swimming pool, which has turned into a paradise that is responsible for the births of hundreds of thousands of mosquitos. Humidity begins to attack rooms without any windows from the flood, letting bacteria and insects to eat away the interior. The computers and telephones still lay there, but are slowly decaying as time passes.

10 years after people: As another storm passes by Kuala Lumpur and the Mandarin Oriental, the windows begin to fall off the building after the heat brought by the sun has weakened window hinges keeping it in place. The spa equipment are still intact but are beginning to deteriorate because bacteria have discovered The Spa. The tower itself is slowly turning back into a rusting skeleton, as plant life and corrosion brought by a mixture of constant rainstorms and the unbearable heat from the Sun work together to destroy the structure slowly.

40 years after people: The tower has lost its iconic brown paint exterior. It has been replaced by a plant-covered, gray and windowless tower. The hotel rooms have been destroyed by bacteria and the lobby has become a gathering point for wild animals, who aim on conquering the deteriorating concrete jungle of Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile the weakened supports below the swimming pool fail, and the water comes splashing down along with thousands of mosquitos and trees. The structure still stands though, at least for now.

50 years after people: The Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur is on its last legs. Decades of constant corrosion on the supports have weakened the walls until they are no longer able to hold the heavy structure. During another rainstorm, a lightning strikes hits a support, almost breaking it, and sets off an inferno on the 16th floor, setting the room ablaze. 20 minutes later, the floor and the supports give way, and the entire structure comes crashing on itself, never to be seen again, the remains of destroyed cars, beds, telephones, cutlery from restaurants and spa equipment still lay there, mostly broken.

80 years after people: The nearby Carigali Tower comes collapsing onto what was once the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur. Every trace of the hotel's remains have been smashed in a pile of debris, leaving no evidence the 5 star hotel existed before.