North Korea has the highest abandoned hotel in the world. Eiffel Loses High!
Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea. Photo: (AFP)
- North Korea has a 330 meter high building called the Ryugyong Hotel in the center of the capital city of Pyongyang which was built in 1987. Unfortunately, until 2024, the Ryugyong Hotel has never been occupied by a single guest.
The Ryugyong Hotel is taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Therefore, the Ryugyong Hotel is called the tallest uninhabited building in the world.
This building consists of three wings, each side has a slope of around 75 degrees and there is a circle on top. In this building there are 3,000 rooms spread over 105 floors. The circle at the end is used as a rotating dining area in which 5 restaurants will operate.
"It was built like this because the top level had to be lighter," said an architect who lives in Singapore and has extensively researched Pyongyang urbanism, Calvin Chua, as quoted by CNN, Friday (5/4/2024).
The name of the Ryugyong Hotel is taken from the name Pyongyang which means "capital of willow trees". The construction of the Ryugyong Hotel has a long history and continues to experience obstacles.
The Beginning of the Ryugyong Hotel
The Ryugyong Hotel seen from a street outside Pyongyang in 2011 Photo: Greg Baker/AP via Business Insider
At that time, North Korea was in the same camp as the Soviet Union against South Korea which was collaborating with the United States. The cold war between North Korea and South Korea at that time was still intense.
A year before construction of the Ryugyong Hotel began, a South Korean company succeeded in building the world's tallest hotel, the Westin Stamford in Singapore. At the same time, Seoul was also appointed as host of the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Seeing South Korea's achievements, North Korea does not want to lose. North Korea held an Olympics called the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989 and built a large hotel right when the event took place. This building is planned to break the record set by South Korea.
Unfortunately, at that time the Soviet Union, North Korea's main ally lost the war making them lose aid. Economic problems hit the country and the IDR 30.6 trillion spent ended up being wasted. The condition of the Ryugyong Hotel when construction was stopped was already complete with the foundations, even though in 1992 there were no windows. For 16 years the building was left like that.
The building uses reinforced concrete and does not use steel. According to Chua, Ryugyong was designed to look like a mountain because mountains are an important symbol in the country. For your information, North Korea has made Mount Paektu their country's national symbol.
Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel Continues
Construction of glass panels at North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel Photo: Eric Lafforgue/Art In All Of Us/Corbis via Getty Images
After 16 years, the Ryugyong Hotel was rebuilt by an Egyptian company, Orascom in 2008. It is planned that this second construction will be completed in 2012. The company installed glass and metal panels on the concrete structure at a cost of US$180 million or the equivalent of IDR 2 trillion (exchange rate IDR 15,863).
The North Korean government used the Ryugyong Hotel as a place to set off fireworks during May Day celebrations in 2009. Then at the end of 2012, the German company Kempinski was going to take over management of the Ryugyong Hotel, but a few months before the hotel opened, they withdrew.
According to CNN, this possibility has something to do with news of a 23-story apartment building collapsing in Pyongyang due to construction which made the German company hesitant to use the Ryugyong Hotel.
Six years later, the Ryugyong Hotel installed an LED screen on the front of the building to display Kim Yong Il's propaganda slogans in 2018 for several hours every night. Until now, the Ryugyong Hotel has not been equipped with adequate interiors and there is even no electricity in it.