[War & Business] Pyongyang's White Elephant

The Ryugyong Hotel, a 105-story skyscraper located in the Potonggang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. Construction began in 1987 but it has yet to be completed.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] The UK's Daily Mail reported that this year's world's largest "white elephant" in architecture is the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang. A white elephant refers to a building constructed on a massive scale for propaganda purposes but ends up being useless, consuming huge maintenance costs and unable to be demolished due to sunk costs.

This building is a 105-story skyscraper started by North Korea in 1987 and remains unfinished to this day. It even suffered the humiliation of being selected by the Guinness Book of Records as the "world's tallest empty hotel." Since its groundbreaking, it has never functioned as a building and has long since degenerated into a backdrop displaying regime propaganda slogans.

The reason Ryugyong Hotel became a burden is analyzed to be because it was built solely for the purpose of competing with South Korea's regime without any consideration of tourism demand or marketability. Construction began under the directive of then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, who was provoked by the news of the 63 Building's topping-out ceremony held in Seoul in November 1983, and despite severe economic difficulties, construction was repeatedly halted and resumed.

Over the next 30 years, the construction companies changed countless times. From design to the concrete framework, a French construction company initially took charge but withdrew. Subsequently, construction companies from North Korea's friendly countries such as China, Russia, and Egypt successively continued the exterior work, but interior work has yet to even be attempted.

After setting the construction period to end by 1992, Kim Il-sung's 80th birthday, they rushed the project, which greatly weakened the building's durability. Because the concrete framework was covered before it fully dried, proceeding with interior work could have risked the collapse of the entire building.

In 1996, Chinese technicians conducted a safety inspection of the Ryugyong Hotel and proposed demolishing the building using controlled demolition methods, citing severe leaks on the upper floors and significant subsidence on one side of the building, which posed a high risk of collapse. However, the North Korean regime rejected this, stating that since the construction began under the directive of the founding leader of the state, mid-way abandonment was unthinkable.

Even after the Kim Jong-un regime took power, forced installation of glass on the exterior walls continued, resulting in numerous accidents and casualties. Moreover, from 2010, the Egyptian Orascom Group, responsible for the glass work, became embroiled in political instability in Egypt the following year, causing its executives to flee abroad, which led to even more shoddy construction. Now, even a slight strong wind causes anxiety over potential damage to the building.

It is expected that this building will never function as a hotel and will remain only as a massive regime propaganda monument. It has become a stark symbol showing how the vain ambitions of the ruling regime can oppress the lives of the people for a long time.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.