Some Flickr research:
BEFORE PHOTOS:
Close-ups of pretty terrible photos of decaying Ryugyong:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7861355...06907/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbei...74576/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wkenney/218746737/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brodiek...23909/sizes/o/
AFTER CONCRETE RESTORATION:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernbei...37458/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1018533...82301/sizes/o/
Most dramatic is the difference between this
BEFORE and this
AFTER.
As an additional observation, the sloping surfaces and the balconies are in much worse shape
than the flat, vertical walls. This is presumably because they are unprotected from elements
above, and water has to run off the balconies and down the sloping walls, deterioriating that
area faster than other areas.
This is probably cherry-picked concrete restoration, but there you go -- more 'concrete'
(pun intended) proof that concrete restoration is going on.
I am interested in what they're doing inside the structure, since careful structural reinforcements
are likely necessary before inhabitation. South Korea media quote engineers saying that they
estimate a price quote of $2B for retroactive structural reinforcements, making it potentially
cheaper to reconstruct this building than to reinforce. That said, politically, it's easier for
North Korea to salvage this building. They come up with with some kind of lucrative partnership
with Orascom and get them to do all the work in exchange for something. And Orascom might
have found a clever ways (involving retrained North Korean engineers working with well-trained
egyptian engineers, as well as utilizing carefully modern-tested cherry picked good-quality-enough
North Korean mined material or cheap chinese imported material, to somehow push the price tag
below $1 billion, and things like not bothering to reinforce dirty concrete that passes electronic
strength tests such as ultrasound, X-ray or technology appropriate for this use, etc. Selective
reinforcing only where necessary, maybe.)
They even appear to have made the balconies thicker, too, when you look at all the
before-and-after. Time will tell, whether they secretly plan to keep it empty, against
the official word Orascom plans to make it an inhabited building...