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See Inside North Korea’s Mysterious ‘Hotel of Doom’ That Remains Incomplete 25 Years After Construction Began

Sep. 28, 2012 3:00pm Benny Johnson

See Inside North Koreas Mysterious Hotel Of Doom, That Remains A Disaster 20 Years After Construction Began

Photo Credit: AP

Will North Korea’s “Hotel of Doom” ever be completed?

For over 20 years, Pyongyang’s skyline has suffered the outline of the markedly menacing, infamously ugly structure known as the “Hotel of Doom.” The ominous building is essentially a three-sided pyramid with walls that jag upwards at 75 degrees, capped by a series of concentric rings. Newspapers and magazines have described the structure as “the worst building in the history of mankind” and an ”Evil Lair for Kim Jong Il” however it is properly known as the Ryugyong Hotel.

Construction began in 1987, right as the Soviet block was crumbling across the continent. The building halted for 16 years when the North Korean economy and subsequent funding for the hotel collapsed, leaving the obtuse, cement shell of a gigantic building, looming over the nations capitol city.

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: publicintelligence.net

Graciously, the state flexed it’s policy of economic isolation in 2008 by allowing an Egyptian conglomerate to supervise the rebuilding work. The firm, Orascom Telecom, took over the project as part of a 400 million dollar deal with exclusive option to modernize North Korea’s archaic cell phone market.

Dozens of Egyptian engineers and some 2,000 local workers have labored to enclose the tower of doom from outside elements. Now the outside of the building is covered in shimmering glass, which, from a distance, looks futuristic and luxurious.

Photo Credit: Google

Photo Credit: AP

But upon further inspection, one can see the unmitigated disaster this project has been for the centrally planned economy of the North Korean state: photos taken this month reveal an empty cement interior.

In this Sept. 23, 2012 photo released by Koryo Group on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, a visitor, center left, stands on the ground floor of the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. After years of standing unfinished, construction on the exterior of the massive hotel resumed three years ago but the hotel has not yet opened to the public. This photo taken by the Beijing-based Koryo Tours shows that the interior remains unfinished. Credit: AP

In this Sept. 23, 2012 photo released by Koryo Group, visitors tour the top floor of the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. Credit: AP

Conceived as a grandiose projection of state wealth, the hotel instead became a symbol of the harsh failings of a centrally planned state with no investment capitol. As the North Korean state has flexed it’s policy of economic isolation, the Hotel of Doom presents a fitting allegory for the concept of the communist state: appealing, intriguing, and modern from afar, but an utterly hollow disaster on the inside.

Photo Credit: publicintelligence.net

Facts:
RYUGYONG HOTEL
330m (1,083ft) high, 105 floors
Construction started 1987, halted from 1993-2008
External works completed 2012
Internal works, beyond 2012

H/T ontd

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Comments (39)

flatbroke
Posted on September 30, 2012 at 3:41pm
This heidious structure aptly named “hotel of doom” is a shinning example of communism/socoalism/marxism, at their very best. In a Capitalist society this structure would have much more “curb appeal” and would have been completed inside and out in 1988, and would have had at least 1 maybe 2 remodels since. ah the many benifits of communism huh! this is what everyone is looking forward to in 2013.

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TheSitRep
Posted on September 29, 2012 at 5:21pm
Hey! It’s just a shell like all of Obama’s investment schemes well at least “Yon Koreasine” can’t make it vanish.

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alinskythis
Posted on September 29, 2012 at 3:50pm
Oh, the Illuminati pyramid and capstone.

What a surprise.

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- Gums
  Posted on September 30, 2012 at 8:26pm
  Looks like an inverted triangular structure with 6 edges to me Alinsky. Not a pyramid. Try to get your geometric structures down when you spew out random Ron Paul conspiracies. Alright Alinskyite?
  
  There is a world outside your dungeons and dragons video games.
  
  Report this comment
billrow
Posted on September 29, 2012 at 1:14pm
Capitol is what DC is.
Capital is what North Korea ran out of.

Come on Blaze!

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Cslagenhop
Posted on September 29, 2012 at 9:25am
Solyndra?

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teddrunk
Posted on September 29, 2012 at 12:13am
Doesn’t look any dumber than the Space Needle

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- G-WHIZ
  Posted on September 29, 2012 at 11:25am
  At least the “spaceneedle” is COMPLETED ON TIME, and has a fabulous rotating restaurant above!!
  It is not a gut-less empty shell costing their taxpayers several hundred times more and NEVER finnished! Can you say…”M O N E Y P I T”??
  
  Report this comment
- normalmom
  Posted on September 29, 2012 at 1:11pm
  The spaceneedle is really cool to go up and see the view.
  
  Report this comment
Nickallsopp
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 9:10pm
“The Hotel of Doom presents a fitting allegory for the concept of the communist state: appealing, intriguing, and modern from afar, but an utterly hollow disaster on the inside.”

They couldn’t have nailed it better. That’s perhaps the best way to sum up communism I ever heard.
Too bad most people are history buffs op they’d know that, but instead they remain ignorant anf refuse to face facts. Fingers are crossed, lets not this happen to America.

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- title_of_liberty
  Posted on September 29, 2012 at 10:27pm
  Definitely. As nice as people make communism out to be, it is not pretty. North Korea is destitute while South Korea is an economic powerhouse. East Germany was the jewel of the Soviet empire yet it was so poor that when West Germany absorbed it that they had a recession just bringing the easterners living standards up. The idea behind communism is to keep the people as poor as possible without having a revolt. And if you don’t like it you’re either shot or sent to the gulags.
  
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- Mr. H.
  Posted on September 30, 2012 at 11:03pm
  It’s a nice description of the Obama regime too.
  
  Report this comment
Harry19
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 6:14pm
Big deal,Our freedom tower is NOT finished.2001 till whenever.

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DeathRattle
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 6:12pm
Alot like Obama, shiny and odd on the outside…… utterly empty inside.

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THE_END_IS_NEAR
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 6:08pm
I’ll bet you could fly a couple jets into it and it would still stand….just sayin

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- Max jones
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 8:44pm
  Not if it was painted with thermite. just sayin’.
  
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ktmrider1
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:40pm
it’s pretty cool loking if you ask me. but seeing as how it was built without any safety standards or building codes I wouldnt get within 5 miles of it.

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Bob350
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:15pm
MADENNZ
This one doesn’t look like the Tower of Babel. But I know one that does!!!
Check this out!!

http://workforall.net/assets/EU-BABEL-TOWER.jpg

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- Uranium Wedge
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:59pm
  Hey, that’s the building on Mercenaries
  
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SituationalGravity
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:12pm
Only a more-balanced budget agenda will save our more-perfect Union.

Otherwise the Fed will spend us into oblivion. PERIOD

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sbenard
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:02pm
Oh no! The Romulans have invaded North Korea! Call in Captain Picard and the Enterprise!

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nobull14
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:36pm
Its all most taken as long to build the freedom towers in New York ?. Big Government in every ones way.

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MN NICE
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:36pm
Yeah, it seems kinda crappy now… But just wait ’til the pool and bar is done! Great times ahead!!

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capitalismrocks
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:31pm
They can’t feed their people, but will build this stupidity, they are upgrading their cellular network, but no one has decent medical access and food…

We need to cut off ALL aid to N. Korea and force China to take care of their forgotten step-child. When people start to starve and die, put on a massive PR campaign showing China as allowing it to happen.

We need to change our global agenda, put all of the burden for things on China and Russia off our backs, that means more fracking and more energy independence which means we will have less need to have any military presence in the middle east except to protect Israel and Europe, then have China and Russia take on all of the burden of protecting oil supply lines and sea lanes, let them shoulder ALL of the costs, we bring our troops home and instead of protecting the borders for other nations, we protect our own borders, cut down on drugs, human trafficking and weapons tracking, this will take a MASSIVE financial burden off of us and help us to reduce our debt and dependence on others and then we can dictate REAL policy that doesn’t have us making decisions based on who we get energy from or who we have to look the other way for.

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- sgtstubbs
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:27pm
  Hold it sparky, they have a government ran by Democrats.
  
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- bpodlesnik
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:58pm
  I didn’t know we had any aid going there. I thought all food aid was cut off already.
  
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GoodStuff
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:26pm
Yay for central planning!

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- Cavallo
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:31pm
  Coming soon to a country, state, county, city near you. All praise be to the Obamassiah.
  
  Report this comment
- LIBSALWAYSLIE
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:31pm
  They ran out of other peoples money, duh.
  
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MadenNZ
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:21pm
Huh…I ‘m curious if the ‘tower of babel’ resembled anything like this?

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- SituationalGravity
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:11pm
  Yep, it is a Tower of Babel; the parable for govt waste and spending. In California its called high-speed rail.
  
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huey6367
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:18pm
This is the future of America under Obama

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:17pm
Americas future under Obama.

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Alky
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:13pm
Ahhh… socialism, ain’t it grand!!

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progressiveslayer
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:12pm
Central planners produce the disaster that is N.Korea and our POS in chief envisions America becoming a communist state as well,he just needs four more years to be more flexible.
That building is ugly and everything about N.Korea is evil,they starve their own people to death and have political prisoners.

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Rothbardian_in_the_Cleve
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:08pm
One doesn’t simply telnet into Mordor.

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- contkmi
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:13pm
  Awesome.
  
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- Cavallo
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:48pm
  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. that made my day.
  
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Osaka
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 3:07pm
A perfect analogy of everything socialism/communism promises to deliver–and then doesn’t.

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