Construction of the 105 story Pyongyang hotel, the Ryukyung Hotel, began in 1987 as a propaganda display of the superiority of the North Korean governing system which was engaged in a legitimacy competition with the South at the time. Construction was suspended two years later due to lack of funds.
South Koreans visiting Pyongyang witnessed the construction being carried out by Orascom Construction Industries S.A.E., an Egyptian company which is preparing to build a mobile phone network in Pyongyang.
Orascom is attempting to benefit from an acquisition by setting up an office in North Korea, where it has invested $115 million dollars in North Korea and will receive 50% of the profits.
Grand National Party member, Jung Hyung Geun, said on the 1st of May that, “The North Korean authorities decided to cooperate with Orascom from Egypt to remodel the Ryukyung Hotel.” At a meeting to explain the result of the first Inter-Korea Summit, the former President Roh Moo Hyun reported that he “heard that construction of the 105 story-hotel in Pyongyang, the Rukyung Hotel, will resume and that the construction technology being used is great.”
The men’s magazine “Esquire” published a feature on the hotel in its February issue under the title “The Worst Building in the History of Mankind,” describing it as “some twisted North Korean version of Cinderella’s castle.”
The magazine described that “the world’s 22nd largest skyscraper has been vacant for two decades and is likely to stay that way,” and “Even by Communist standards, the 3,000-room hotel is hideously ugly, a series of three gray 328-foot long concrete wings shaped into a steep pyramid.”
The construction of the Ryukyung Hotel was originally started in August 1987 under the slogan, “Let’s hold the 13th Pyongyang Youth Student Festival (in 1989) after the construction of the world’s tallest hotel!” with French funding and technology. However, in the early-1990s the construction was suspended due to financial problems while only 60% complete.
When the construction had just stared, the authorities propagandized that if a newborn baby sleeps in a different room each night, s/he would check out when they are 27 years old.
