Shopping is one of Thailand’s main attractions. On professional cook and photographer Jesse Rockwell’s trip to Bangkok, he went to the shopping mall. However, instead of visiting the popular centres, he ventured to the abandoned New World shopping mall to capture the sights of one of the world’s most amazing accidental fish ponds. In the ruins of this dilapidated mall, which caught fire in 1999 and has been abandoned ever since, lives an aquarium of fish. The mall is flooded several feet deep with water and has become the home to an ecosystem of koi and catfish. These photos are eerie, like scenes from a post-apocalyptic film. Its hard to imagine that a place that was once filled with shoppers and crowd is now completely devoid of human life. However, there is beauty in the new life and nature that is now thriving in the space. 

 Rockwell shares via his blog:

New World shopping mall, a four storey former shopping mall. Originally constructed as an eleven storey building. It was found to be in breach of old town Bangkok’s four storey limit on building heights. The top seven floors were demolished to adhere to building codes in 1997. In 1999 the mall burned due to suspected arson committed by a competitor in the area. The disaster resulted in several casualties, and the building has remained abandoned ever since. Not having a roof, the basement floor remains under several feet of water year round.

At some point in the early 2000s an unknown person began introducing a small population of exotic Koi and Catfish species. The small population of fish began to thrive and the result is now a self-sustained, and amazingly populated urban aquarium.

Check out Jesse Rockwell’s blog here ! 

via thisiscolossal