This 300-meter-high skyscraper will be an imposing presence in any city's skyline. In Pyongyang, North Korea it dwarfs every other structure in sight, dominating not just the skyline however the city itself. It is North Korea's largest building, and yet it remains of the moment, unfinished.
In 1986, a South Korean Group completed the making of the 226-meter-tall Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore, at thee time by far the most ambitious work-in-progress ever undertaken using a Korean company. The communist leadership of many North wished to prove that its own engineers were capable of constructing a building on an much longer grandiose scale. Baekdu Mountain Architects & Engineers started construction in 1987.
The building consists of three triangular sections, each 100 meters long. The sections converge with the summit, giving an overall pyramidal outline into the structure. It is a gigantic building containing roughly 360,000 square meters--roughly 67 football fields--of floor space. At the very summit of a typical hotel is a 40-meter-tall, eight-floor conical structure, that's presupposed to house seven revolving restaurants. The hotel's original plans called for 3,000 rooms, as well as loads of space for additional commercial venues.
While using original plan, the resort was purported to open in 1989, however construction problems forced the government to postpone its opening repeatedly. Under the early 1990s multiple problems hit the project. Poor quality materials, electricity shortages, as well as a widespread famine on the west coast all became serious obstacles to the completing the building. Expected foreign investments never materialized. Finally, in 1992, construction was halted. Japanese sources estimate that over the course of its construction, the project swallowed over two percent of North Korea's GDP, or roughly 750 million US dollars.
The Ryugyong Hotel shell was left standing empty for 16 years. Due to the financial burden the project placed on the already starving nation, along with the drab and menacing physical appearance the naked concrete structure, foreign media termed the hotel the "World's Worst Building" and also the "Hotel of Doom." Nevertheless, work resumed in 2008, along with a slick glass facade is currently being installed. Fresh official date for the opening of the resort has been set for 2012, at the 100th anniversary of a typical birth of your Great Leader Kim Il Sung.