— In 1987, ground was broken on a grand new hotel in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang. The pyramid-shaped, supertall skyscraper was to exceed 1,000 feet in height, and was to house at least 3,000 rooms, as well as five revolving restaurants with panoramic views.
While the structure reached its planned height in 1992, it stood windowless and hollow for another 16 years, its naked concrete exposed, like a menacing monster overlooking the city. During that time the building, which dwarfs everything around it, earned itself theThe hotel has since been clad in metal and glass, and was later fitted with LED lights to turn it into a colorful nighttime spectacle.
North Korea was bound for an economic crisis. Although the external structure had been completed, construction was halted in 1992 and a crane was abandoned on top of the building.The building consists of three wings, each sloped at a 75-degree angle, converging into a cone encasing the top 15 floors, which are intended for restaurants and observation decks.
"It was built like this because the upper levels needed to be lighter," said Calvin Chua, a Singapore-based architect who has extensively researched Pyongyang's urbanism, in a phone interview."They didn't have advanced construction materials, so it was built entirely in concrete. You can't achieve a slender tower that way, you need to have a massive base with a tapered top.
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