While China has been leading the trend in skyscrapers for the past decade, architects and designers apparently decided to turn things upside-down for a change. According to CNN, China recently broke ground on the first luxury underground hotel near Shanghai.

China is going to build an underground  19-storeyed 5-star hotel, International Shimao Shanghai, near Shanghai - approximately 30 miles far from Shanghai. It will be an extravagant hotel deep within a 100-metre (328 feet) pit in Shanghai's Songjiang District near the base of Tianmashan (pronounced as Tiyaan Mashaan) Mountain. It was going to start in 2015, but its construction has already begun in 2012. It will cost about $550,000,000. From among its 19 floors, its three floors will be above ground and the remaining 16 extending into the bottom of the pit. The lowest level of the hotel will certain a leisure complex.

It will be the first hotel which will show the rocks and water bodies of the underground, of the world.
It will have 380 rooms .and an underwater restaurant.
It will have a water aquarium and the facilities of water sports too.
It will  have a theme park in its 428,000 square meter vicinity. This park will have the facility of Bunjee Jumping and rock climbing. Its developer Group has planned to make the aquarium in lower storeys which will be immersed in water. The aquarium's depth will be 33 feet (10 meters). The initial rate of the hotel room will be from $320.
There will be conference facilities for 1,000 people.

Building them is not as difficult as you’d think at first, as the site is a former rock quarry and most of the underground digging has already been done. There will be an underwater restaurant at the bottom.
[April 18, 2012]