A Monument to Ridiculousness

I can't remember who pointed me to this, but the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea is one of my favourite buildings in the world. Not because of engineering achievement, or architectural beauty... as a matter of fact, it's one of the ugliest buildings I've ever seen, and was horribly engineered. Nope, the Ryugyong makes my favourite buildings list for its unrivaled combination of audacity and ineptitude.

The story goes something like this: In the late 1980's, North Korea was starting to get jealous of South Korea's increasing prosperity and shiny skyscrapers, so the government decided it was going to outdo them, and commissioned the construction of a Super-Hotel. The Hotel To End All Hotels! 105 stories of communist glory, with five... no, six! No, SEVEN revolving restaurants! Seriously, seven revolving restaurants. When finished, it would have been the tallest hotel in the world, with three THOUSAND rooms. Three thousand rooms in one building, for a country that only lets in about 130,000 visitors a year, nationwide.

Alas, no one ever got to spend their luxurious North Korean vacation in the Ryugyong, because it was never finished. For starters, the building was so massive, concrete shortages plagued the construction from day one. Secondly, it was such a huge building that its construction actually contributed to electricity shortages in Pyongyang. I'm guessing it is hard to build a 105 story hotel without power tools. Finally, the concrete that they DID get was so poor that once the whole concrete frame was poured, the building began to sag under its own weight. All this for the low, low price of SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. This, in a country with a food shortage. As a result of the sagging, the building needed $300 million in repairs, which the government didn't happen to have lying around. And thus, the world's biggest almost-hotel was born. Here's what the building looks like as of today, which is basically how it looked when it was abandoned in the 80's, with one lonely crane forgotten on the roof.


Fig. 1: Ridiculous.

Seriously, THAT was your design for a world-class hotel, North Korea? It looks like a giant cartoon supervillain lair.

One of the best parts of the whole story is the fact that the government was so embarassed by its failure that it essentially forbid people from talking about the tower. It gets airbrushed out of official photos of Pyongyang. It's not on any maps. There have been reports of people asking tour guides questions about it. Questions like "What's with that giant concrete pyramid over there?" typically receive responses like "What giant concrete pyramid?". In their defence, it is kind of hard to spot.


Fig. 2: I don't see it.