This 300-meter-high skyscraper would be an imposing presence in different city's skyline. In Pyongyang, North Korea it dwarfs every other structure in sight, dominating not only the skyline still the city itself. It is North Korea's largest building, however it remains for the moment, unfinished.
In 1986, a South Korean Group completed the construction of the 226-meter-tall Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore, at thee time the foremost ambitious construction project ever undertaken by the Korean company. The communist leadership of your North wanted to prove that its own engineers were very effective at constructing a building driving on an much longer grandiose scale. Baekdu Mountain Architects & Engineers started construction in 1987.
The building involves three triangular sections, each 100 meters long. The sections converge at the summit, giving an overall pyramidal outline towards the structure. It is a gigantic building containing roughly 360,000 square meters--roughly 67 football fields--of floor space. Along at the very summit of the hotel is known as a 40-meter-tall, eight-floor conical structure, that's alleged to house seven revolving restaurants. The hotel's original plans called for 3,000 rooms, as well as tons of space for added commercial venues.
In line with the original plan, the hotel was supposed to open in 1989, however construction problems forced the federal government to postpone its opening once or twice. Under the early 1990s multiple problems hit the project. Poor quality materials, electricity shortages, and a widespread famine in the country all became serious obstacles to the finishing of the building. Expected foreign investments never materialized. Finally, in 1992, construction was halted. Japanese sources estimate that over the course of its construction, the project swallowed over two percent of North Korea's GDP, or roughly 750 million US dollars.
The Ryugyong Hotel shell was left standing empty for 16 years. As a result of financial burden the project placed on the already starving nation, and the drab and menacing look of the naked concrete structure, foreign media dubbed the hotel the "World's Worst Building" and the "Hotel of Doom." Nevertheless, work resumed in 2008, as well as a slick glass facade is at the moment being installed. The new official date for opening of the lodge has long been set for 2012, at the 100th anniversary of a typical birth of a typical Great Leader Kim Il Sung.