I find this building very interesting and there isn't a whole lot of information out there as to why the building was never finished or what its design influences were based off of. I think it could have been because of NK's shortage in funding or lack of structural stability. But what I really want to see is close up photos of the building. As many as possible. If you have any please post them with your comments. thanks


the only real photo i could find of the hotel (http://www.korea-dpr.com/gallery/KoreaisOne/abl)

Wow, that's the best pic I've seen on this hotel so far!

Here are some pics I took a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't allowed to make pics from nearby, but I took some from my hotel room. Fortunately I have 10x optical zoom on my cam. :)

http://www.xs4all.nl/~davidee/Vertigo/PYON18.jpg

Zoom:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~davidee/Vertigo/PYON19.jpg

Vertigo, I would say that your photos of this hotel are the best ones I've seen. I'm wondering what are they going to do with it, it can't just stand abandoned all the time, they should either demolish or complete it.

the hotel pictures give me these weird creepy feelings...

Vertigo, I would say that your photos of this hotel are the best ones I've seen. I'm wondering what are they going to do with it, it can't just stand abandoned all the time, they should either demolish or complete it.

Reports say that they cannot complete it as they lack the necessary funds, as well as the fact that the building was constructed with such lousy quality materials that any attempts to make it habitable and usable would be futile. You wouldn't want to live in a 100 storey skyscraper that risks collapsing right. I don't even think they have the money to demolish this thing. (Nuclear weapons anyone?)

Well if NK's intension was to show the world what it can build, it certainly has suceeded cause I bet more people are interested in this hotel than Taipei 101.

Don't the N.Koreans check to see if you brought cameras into the country or if you are taking pictures of the city outside or even in the hotel rooms?

Any pictures of your hotel? There must be no photos of the Ryugyong Hotel from the bottom of it in existance. How do construction workers get all the way up to the top?

There are reports that there are cameras in the hotel rooms. Is that true? And isn't it scary to be sleeping in a hotel room where who knows what happened in there before.

Pyongyang looks like an uninhabitable city. There are no signs of life other than the concrete box structures. Its like an abandoned city. No marketing on the streets by housewives, no bus services to bring people around the vast city, no kids playing on the streets, no stock exchange, no shops! It looks just like a place where people walk about the street to show off to foreigners that they can walk and they can dress in supposedly ''nice'' clothes but which look horrendous.

The government does not know what to do with this hotel now. It is on the verge of collapse, and to continue is impossible.

Pyongyang looks like an uninhabitable service. There are no signs of life other than the concrete box structures. Its like an abandoned city. No marketing on the streets by housewives, no bus services to bring people around the vast city, no kids playing on the streets, no stock exchange, no shops! It looks just like a place where people walk about the street to show off to foreigners that they can walk and they can dress in supposedly ''nice'' clothes but which look horrendous.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D I couldn't agree more... has anyone seen Team America:World Police? maybe the city is what makes KimJongil feel "ronery", :D:D:D:D

haha ronery ronery~!

Since Vertigo isn't doing the advertisement himself, I'll do it for him. :) He posted many more of his North Korea photos in the Cityscapes and Skylines (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=144944) section of the World forums, and also in the European forum. He also visited the border area between North and South Korea and shows those photos as well. :okay:

Well if NK's intension was to show the world what it can build, it certainly has suceeded cause I bet more people are interested in this hotel than Taipei 101.

Oh no, I don't think they showed the world what they can build, in fact they showed that they CAN'T build it since it's just an empty concrete frame.

Don't the N.Koreans check to see if you brought cameras into the country or if you are taking pictures of the city outside or even in the hotel rooms?

They knew we had camera's with us and allowed us to shoot many pictures. We had to ask permission to our guides for every picture though. I shot these from my hotel room without asking though.

Any pictures of your hotel?

No, unfortunately not. Just didn't think about it. It was an impressive hotel though, about 160 m high (42 floors).

There are reports that there are cameras in the hotel rooms. Is that true? And isn't it scary to be sleeping in a hotel room where who knows what happened in there before.

I don't know. But I don't think so. Tourists are not really a threat to the country, because tourism is so controlled by the state. So they don't really care what you do in your hotel room. Heck, we even had BBC world in our hotel room.

Pyongyang looks like an uninhabitable city. There are no signs of life other than the concrete box structures. Its like an abandoned city. No marketing on the streets by housewives, no bus services to bring people around the vast city, no kids playing on the streets, no stock exchange, no shops! It looks just like a place where people walk about the street to show off to foreigners that they can walk and they can dress in supposedly ''nice'' clothes but which look horrendous.

Of course I wouldn't want to live in North-Korea because everything is controlled by the state and there's no freedom. But apart from that, Pyongyang itself looked quite inhabitable. I saw quite many people walking on the streets. There are also lots of bus and tram services and an increasing amount of private vehicles. I think the lifes of Pyongyang's citizens are not that bad. The real misery of North-Korea can be found in rural places, where there are shortages of ... well about everything.

Since Vertigo isn't doing the advertisement himself, I'll do it for him. He posted many more of his North Korea photos in the Cityscapes and Skylines section of the World forums, and also in the European forum. He also visited the border area between North and South Korea and shows those photos as well.

Thanks, WH! But this reminds me that I wanted to post that thread also here in the Korean forum. I'll do that in a few moments.

Waterloo posted some interesting news about this building right here (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=148355&page=1&pp=20). I'm a bit sceptical about it, but it would be very interesting if it were true.

@ Vertigo: is this the hotel you stayed at?

http://www.koreastrategic.com/yanggakdohotel.gif

Yes, thanks for the pic. I never saw it quite well as this, because every time we arrived or left it was either dark or foggy.