By Mira Soyza
North Korea’s hubristic vision which left behind a country far in the dust
Imagine walking into an underdeveloped town where the buildings are made of old post-war concretes and water-stained walls. You see rows of square, box-like residentials and pavements that are marred by cracks and chips — and then in the middle of all that backwardness stands a modern skyscraper encased in a facade of wealth.
That is Ryugyong Hotel — the wonder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea for short.
If you can’t see past the rigid state-controlled system, food and power shortages, and shabby concrete dwellings from the Soviet Era, the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel is quite a surreal sight—the story behind its construction is also nothing short of unusual.
Thirty years after the Korean War, while the North struggled to pick up the pieces and rebuild as a nation, their Southern neighbour was doing far better and was already far more prosperous. In 1986, a South Korean company completed one of the tallest hotels in Southeast Asia, the Stamford Hotel in Singapore—it is believed that this accomplishment displeased the competitive North. The sentiment was further aggravated when South Korea was given the honour to host the 1988 Olympic Games.
Feeling peeved and at the same time challenged, they wanted to prove to the world that they too have the capability to be economically self-reliant – especially now without the backing from Soviet Union or China. As a response—under the regime of its first president, Kim Il-Sung—the construction of the 330m Ryugyong Hotel in its capital Pyongyang began.
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Welcome to the Hotel of Doom
Scheduled to open in 1989 in conjunction with the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, Ryugyong Hotel was meant to be the largest hotel and 7th tallest skyscraper in the world— but that dream never materialised and the skyscraper has been ‘out-talled’ many times over since (thanks to the likes of Burj Khalifa and Shanghai Tower).
The towering building designed by Baikdoosan Architects and Engineers is shaped like a pyramid carved out of glass. It is made up of three wings and each of these wings measures at 100 meters long, 18 metres wide, and slants at a 75-degree angle. With a grand total of 105 floors, it has the capacity of 3,000 rooms, five revolving restaurants, casinos, nightclubs and several banquet halls. At the top of the building are eight rotating floors, topped by six more static floors at the peak.
Due to several construction problems with building method and materials, the opening of the hotel was delayed countless of times. The building finally reached its full architectural height in 1992, but construction was suddenly halted. The news didn’t come as a shock as it was clear as day that the project was a massive undertaking for a country which was still struggling to keep its nation fed. The USD750 million that was poured into the project left the country gasping for funding as electricity and food shortages worsen.
Ryugyong sat vacant and unfinished for 16 years—no other developer was willing to undertake the project despite efforts in attracting new investors to finance it. North Korea needed up to USD300 million in order for work to resume. What was supposed to signify the totalitarian country’s capability and power that could rival the next economic powerhouse, remained merely an empty rusting shell with no windows, fixtures, or fittings.
Second Chance at Life
Miraculously, in April 2008, an Egyptian company called the Orascom Group was rumoured to have taken on the project and had started refurbishing the Ryugyong Tower by installing the exterior glass panels and telecommunications antennas.
There was no clear acknowledgement that the group was working on Ryugyong—the large scale project isn’t even listed under Orascom’s repertoire—there was however, a small mention under the company’s profile of a joint venture between Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding (OTM, 75% stake), and state-owned Korea Post & Telecoms Corporation (KPTC, 25% stake) to establish Koryolink, Korea’s only 3G Mobile operator. A source reported that Orascom agreed to invest USD400 million to create a nationwide infrastructure in North Korea and that the revival of Ryugyong formed a key part of the deal.
No one knows what transpired between the conglomerate and North Korea. But a German luxury hotel group, Kempinski shocked the world in 2012 when it announced its plans to resurrect the abandoned monolith. A year later, in a less shocking announcement, it revealed its intention of pulling out of the project.
In December 2013, Orascom froze its investment in Koryolink, claiming that the USD200 million it invested to date had seen no returns and the North authorities prohibited remittance of the profit to Egypt.
Today, the towering hotel remains merely a semblance of an ambitious (or aspiring) nation—nothing but an empty shell of grandeur left to cast a shadow on the city of Pyongyang.
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