Home Tags Posts tagged with "ryugyong hotel"

ryugyong hotel

Ryugyong Hotel, the 105-storey building which dominates the skyline of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, may open next year, 26 years after construction began.

The pyramid-shaped building has become known as the “Hotel of Doom”.

Reto Witter, chief executive of the Kempinski group, which will manage the Ryugyong hotel, said only 150 rooms on the top floors would be used as a hotel.

Reto Wittwer said shops, restaurants and offices would eventually open on the lower levels.

Construction on the building began in 1987.

It is the 47th tallest building in the world, at 330 m, and has the fifth greatest number of floors, 105.

Ryugyong Hotel was scheduled to be completed in 1989 in time for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students.

But construction was abandoned in 1992 when North Korea suffered an economic crisis.

Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang may open in 2013, 26 years after construction began

Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang may open in 2013, 26 years after construction began

Its hulking, unfinished presence has long been an embarrassment for the North Korean leadership, analysts say.

Ryugyong Hotel was voted “Worst Building in the History of Mankind” by Esquire magazine in 2008.

The American publication called it “hideously ugly, even by communist standards.”

There are reports of poor construction and the use of inferior materials.

A delegation from the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea, which inspected the building almost 15 years ago, concluded it was beyond repair and its lift shafts crooked.

But in 2008 an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom, which operates a mobile phone network in North Korea, began equipping the building.

It is reported to have spent $180 million on finishing the hotel’s facade.

Reto Wittwer said the hotel will “partially, probably” open for business next year.

But original plans for 3,000 hotel rooms and three revolving restaurants have been greatly scaled back.

Earlier this year, the Beijing-based company, Koryo Tours, which organizes trips to North Korea, was granted a rare glimpse inside the hotel.

Photos taken by the company showed a vast glass-covered lobby and atrium with tiers of bare concrete at its base, resembling a multi-storey car park.

[youtube Qph8NdtVfto]

Pictures have emerged showing the inside of the 105-storey pyramid-shaped Ryugyong hotel that has been under construction in Pyongyang for 25 years.

North Korea began building the Ryugyong hotel in 1987, but construction was halted for 16 years when funds ran out.

Although work restarted in 2008, the hotel has become, for many, a symbol of North Korea’s thwarted ambitions.

The 105-storey pyramid-shaped Ryugyong hotel has been under construction in Pyongyang for 25 years

The 105-storey pyramid-shaped Ryugyong hotel has been under construction in Pyongyang for 25 years

The tour company that took the pictures say the hotel is now due to open in two or three years time.

Few people have been allowed inside the notorious hotel, which has been variously dubbed the “The Hotel of Doom” or “The Phantom Hotel”.

When conceived, the Ryugyong was intended to communicate to the world an impression of North Korea’s burgeoning wealth.

Few people have been allowed inside the notorious hotel, which has been variously dubbed the "The Hotel of Doom"

Few people have been allowed inside the notorious hotel, which has been variously dubbed the “The Hotel of Doom”

But other economic priorities meant that the hotel had to be put to one side, and it remained untouched until a city-wide “beautification scheme” was introduced five years ago.

At that time, external construction was forecast to take until the end of 2010, with work on the inside being completed in 2012 at the earliest.

But the photo of the interior taken by Koryo Tours, a Beijing-based company that specializes in travel to North Korea, shows a vast concrete lobby with barriers around the edge of each floor.

[youtube -ihr8RHHfn8]

[youtube UW2mg9i4pjk]