15 of the most expensive buildings in the world, from a high-tech hospital to glitzy casinos

The first time the Bellagio fountains put on their famous light-and-water show, it was in front of what was then the most expensive hotel in the world.

Steve Wynn developed the hotel to appeal to an upscale crowd, stocking it with designer stores, exclusive restaurants, and paintings by Van Gogh and Monet. Spending $40 million on the fountains and $300 million on art, Wynn eventually dropped the equivalent of $3.2 billion in today's dollars.

It has 3,900 rooms, over a dozen restaurants, and enough casino space to nearly fit three football fields.

The Bellagio has changed hands a few times. Most recently, Blackstone acquired the property for over $4 billion, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in 2019. It was the city's highest price for a resort casino ever.

In general, casinos have a lot of moving pieces that inflate the cost, Barr said, including hotels, restaurants, and gambling spaces. "So they're just vast," he said.

Hospitals are huge buildings that run for 24 hours and operate special equipment, all of which use a lot of energy.

That's one reason the Royal Adelaide Hospital was built to be as efficient as possible, with rooftop gardens to protect it from the sun and the ability to use waste heat to power some systems. Sensors and sophisticated software also help automate heating and cooling, The Guardian reported in 2017.

Packed with cutting-edge tech, the project was already pricey, but costs swelled and work stalled due to a soil contamination problem, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in 2015.

Since opening, the 800-bed hospital has faced struggles and scrutiny, including when it was operating above capacity in 2023, per ABC. During that time, patients were left waiting in ambulances due to overcrowding.

Many luxury homes have their own movie theaters, but few have built-in salons and private ice cream parlors.

Built for billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his family, the 27-story Antillia is often described as one of the world's most expensive residences, ranking up there with Buckingham Palace. Ambanii is head of the conglomerate Reliance Industries and is India's richest man.

Architectural Digest India estimated the cost of the palatial 400,000-square-foot building at between $1 and $2 billion. The residence is named after a phantom island that cartographers included in 15th-century maps but which explorers couldn't find.

Antillia's design followed principles of Vastu shastra, traditional Indian architecture principles relating to how energy flows, Forbes reported in 2008. The home has modern touches, too, including nine elevators, a six-story garage, and helipads.

One of the tallest buildings in the world at over 2,000 feet high, the 128-story Shanghai Tower stands out even amongst its neighbors in the city's Lujiazui financial district. Its sleek facade twists up toward the clouds.

It holds dozens of floors of office space, a hotel, and numerous observation spaces. There's a sky-high swimming pool on the 84th floor. Dizzying views stretch for 30 miles, according to NPR.

Elevators race up and down the building at 67 feet per second, CNN reported in 2017. At that time, they were the world's fastest.

Shops and restaurants are found on the building's lower floors, and there are "vertical gardens" scattered throughout the building to bring more green space to the urban structure, according to the architects.

Las Vegas is known for making its own version of touristy sights — the Eiffel Tower, an Egyptian pyramid — and Macau's casinos replicate those on the Strip, Stefan Al told BI. He's the author of "Supertall: How the World's Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives" and "The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream."

The Venetian is one example. "That was more or less copied one for one," he said. From its Grand Canal to duped Renaissance art, it's a little slice of Venice in China.

Macau tends to focus more on gambling than Vegas, which also emphasizes its entertainment, Al said. To that end, the Venetian is awash in slot machines and poker tables. It's 550,000-square-foot casino is one of the biggest in the world.

Those looking for more to do could stay in one of the hotel's 3,000 suites or spend hours exploring the restaurants and stores. The resort has a million square feet of shopping options, according to Condé Nast Traveler. That's nearly enough space to fit seven Costcos.

A few years after building the Bellagio, Wynn put his own name on a Vegas casino. The curved structure held over 2,700 rooms, more than 1,800 slot machines, and a Michelin-star restaurant.

Interior designer Roger Thomas evoked a surrealist atmosphere with brightly patterned carpets and hanging parasols. "Brandscents" — Wynn-patented scents — wafted through the building, designed to evoke an emotional response in customers, according to "The Strip."

Instead of spurting fountains, it had a bubbling lake that changed colors and burbled along with music every 30 minutes. In the casino's early days, visitors were able to gaze at Picasso's "La Rêve" painting, which was on display in the gallery. Guests could also play a round of golf at the 18-hole course.

The rebuilt World Trade Center complex was a controversial undertaking as people debated how to replace the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Most of the new structures have been built, including the One World Trade Center, which opened in 2014. Its height is a symbolic 1,776 feet, in honor of the year the country's founders signed the Declaration of Independence. It's also the tallest skyscraper in the US.

Architect David Childs wanted its angular shape to be as memorable as the Washington Monument, he told Time Magazine in 2014.

Visitors can take in views from the sky lobby or play table tennis to take a free yoga class, according to The New York Times.

Barr said part of the building's enormous cost likely came from security measures. "That probably is one of the most expensive buildings in the world on a per-square-foot basis, simply because of all the extras that were associated with that," he said.

It didn't just cost billions of dollars to construct one of the world's heaviest buildings. Workers demolished about a fifth of the city, displacing 40,000 residents, to create the mammoth palace and its lengthy road, deliberately created to be larger than the Champs-Élysee, according to The Guardian.

Over 700 architects worked on its design, and 20,000 laborers toiled night and day to complete the building. The interior contains tons of marble and crystal and gold-leaf ceilings.

Construction started in 1984 at the behest of Nicolae Ceaușescu, who was Romania's communist dictator at the time. Five years later, he and his wife were executed in the Romanian Revolution. The Palace was completed in 1994 and now houses the Romanian government, though 70% of the building remains vacant, CNN reported in 2014.

There are guided tours for those who are curious to explore some of its more than 1,000 rooms.

Emirates Palace was built for tourists instead of as a residence for royalty. The hotel is over 2 million square feet but has only 394 guest rooms, including several suites. Domes line the roof, and visitors have access to a private beach.

Ornate ceilings are covered in gold-leaf that needs replacing every few years, CNN reported in 2018. They're also dripping in Swarovski crystal chandeliers.

Coldplay, Rihanna, and Christina Aguilera have all performed at the Palace. The hotel also appeared in "The Fast and the Furious 7."

Consisting of two 50-story towers, the Cosmopolitan marketed itself as sophisticated, hoping to distinguish itself from the Las Vegas Strip's bright, buzzing competition.

"There's probably an element of these developers competing against each other by adding more bells and whistles to their respective casinos, which is going to dramatically increase the cost," Barr said.

If the energy in the Cosmopolitan's casino feels different, it might be because it has something many others lack: windows. "I think people will enjoy knowing what time of day it is," the Cosmopolitan's chief executive told The Los Angeles Times in 2010.

One of its most iconic sights is the three-story Chandelier Bar, which is covered in 2 million crystals.

A spaceship. A glass donut. However you describe it, Apple's building at its headquarters in Cupertino is distinctive.

Before his death, Steve Jobs announced Apple had "a shot at building the best office building in the world." Initially, he envisioned a clover leaf-like structure that would facilitate employees running into each other and casually discussing their projects, Wired reported in 2017. Eventually, the idea morphed into a single large ring.

In 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek reported the building's cost had skyrocketed from $3 billion to $5 billion. Making it a "net-zero energy" structure with miles of curved glass contributed to the high price.

The ring building has a capacity of 12,000 people, distributed across four floors and covering 2.8 million square feet in total. The curved glass gives views of thousands of drought-­tolerant trees. Four miles of trails wind over the campus.

Employees can also visit the on-site medical clinic or work out at the fitness center, according to The Sacramento Bee.

Two LA teams, the Rams and Chargers, call SoFi Stadium home. Rams owner Stan Kroenke built the 3.1-million-square-foot facility, which seats over 70,000 fans.

Rising costs, the death of two construction workers, bad weather, and COVID all delayed the project, which took four years to complete, The Los Angeles Times reported in 2020.

There's a curved roof, part of which is transparent, but the open sides let the air flow in.

One of the stadium's defining features is its double-sided videoboard. It's 70,000 square feet and weighs 2.2 million pounds, USA Today reported in 2020.

There's also space for cultural events. The venue doubles as a 6,000-capacity performing arts space. Documents, artwork, and other items from the Kinsey African American Art & History Collection are on display at the stadium.

You could spend a weekend in Singapore's Marina Bay Sands and not see everything. A museum, 270 stores and restaurants, a convention center, a skating rink, a luxury hotel, and a casino fill the trio of towers, which are each 55 stories.

A skyway connects the towers at 653 feet in the air. On the 57th floor, a huge infinity pool measuring 450 feet long offers dazzling views. The most luxurious suites cost more than $26,000 a night.

Star architect Moshe Safdie designed the project, which is part of Las Vegas Sands.

In 2011, "The Lion King" musical made its debut in Southeast Asia at one of the Marina Bay Sands' theaters, according to Playbill. Shots of the resort were shown in "Crazy Rich Asians."

"It's really become an icon for Singapore," Al said.

The Saudi government built the Abraj Al Bait complex to help accommodate the millions of Muslims who visit Mecca each year, according to Sotheby's. It's hard to tease out how much each building costs individually, but together the seven skyscrapers are estimated at $15 billion total.

The Clock Tower is the tallest of the seven, with its crescent spire topping out at 1,972 feet. It houses the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, which has 1,650 rooms and views of the Masjid al-Haram, the largest mosque in the world.

An astronomy center and observation deck a both located at the top of the building, according to the Skyscraper Museum.

During daily prayers, the tower's clock, the largest in the world, illuminates 21,000 green and white LED lights, per Architectural Digest.

Another complex of buildings, Hudson Yards boasts some expensive real estate. The team behind the massive project secured $5 billion in financing for 30 Hudson Yards alone in 2015.

Several office buildings, a residential tower, an arts center, and a shopping mall make up the completed structures. Eventually, 16 buildings will be clustered in the area, creating space for 4,000 apartments and 55,000 workers, The New York Times reported in 2019.

The scope of the project is what makes it stand out, Al said. "Very often, that is compared to the Rockefeller Center — built a hundred years ago — in terms of magnitude," he said. That added to the cost, but there were other factors as well, like creating a platform above a rail yard.

"In terms of the scale, the cost of the land, the complexity of the building above an operating rail yard, all of that adds to the costs," he said.