I think it’s just a victim of poor engineering.
The concrete used to make it was poor, and could not hold up to the stresses of making a building of that shape.
Crooked elevator shafts also seemed to doom this project as well.
I think it’s a really cool building, with a lot of potential, but then again I seem to find coolness in outside of the box designs pretty much anywhere, no matter how odd they may be. 
I’m sure there are plenty worse in the world. However just skimming the article, I notice that it can’t be occupied. To me that means that someone wasted a load of space, time, and material into something with 0 functionality. Anything that takes up this much and gives nothing back is terrible in my mind. Granted, I agree that this building is not ugly as the referred to in the article… I still think it is pretty bad just due to its uselessness.
I personally think that it is quite sad. I recall reading about that hotel one day when I was looking around on wikipedia (no idea how I got to its page, you know how that goes), and it reminded me of the USSR’s Buran project. An attempt to prove what you can do/catch up with other countries with a neat design that many have people have put lots of time (and money) into, and it just kind of fizzles… the skeleton of the design remains never to be completed. Something of a ‘stillborn’ design. Very sad, in my mind.
Whoa…that page’s layout is totally and utterly broken in Firefox 2.0…
But to get back on topic, I really don’t find that building hideous…I kind of like it. Then again, I would love a plexiglass/angle aluminum computer case…
JBot
Yeah, I think it’s hideous. It should at least be shiny. It just looks like a moldy jab of rock coming out of the earth…aesthetically and functionality wise, it’s bad.
Just my opinion though.
I like it.
The concrete needs to be covered up but that would happen no matter what when they finished. The internal stuff, ehhh, I didn’t see it so who knows.
But I think it’s quite an unique design- better than many of the hotels I’ve stayed at in the last 8 months!
from an art point of view, it’s okay…ish. it seems like it wasn’t planned out very well; like the engineers and building crew just started with a half-developed design.
if they had put a little more into the presentation then it would have promise. but now it just looks like someone tried to make a flat mountain out of concrete