Posted on 09/07/2009 7:03:50 PM PDT by mathprof
A towering North Korean hotel which Esquire magazine once dubbed "the worst building in the history of mankind" has come back to life with a facade of shiny glass windows affixed to one side of the concrete monolith.
But few expect the North will ever finish construction of its 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, started in 1987 and halted for 16 years because it could have bankrupted the destitute state.
"The hotel doesn't look as shoddy as it once did, probably because of the reflective glass," said a member of a civic group in South Korea that recently returned from a visit to the North.
The 330-meter (1,083 ft) tall hotel dominating the Pyongyang skyline consists of three wings rising at 75 degree angles capped by several floors arranged in rings supposed to hold five revolving restaurants and an observation deck.
Foreign residents of Pyongyang contacted in Seoul said Egypt's Orascom group began renovations last year.
The peak of the 3,000-room hotel, in a country that permits few foreigners to visit, is encircled in new rings of shiny steel. Mirrored glass has yet to be affixed to the other sides of the muddish-grey concrete structure, foreigner visitors said.
"North Koreans told me that you put the glass on one side and if all goes well and looks fine, you then continue on to the others," the civic group member said.
Analysts said the North was likely sprucing up the Ryugyong's facade as part of a campaign to try to turn the state into a "great and prosperous nation" by 2012.
The communist North started construction in a suspected fit of jealousy at South Korea, which was about to host the 1988 Summer Olympics and show off to the world the success of its rapidly developing economy.
But by 1992, worked was halted.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
What makes it even more bizarre is the setting...a stones throw away from the ocean, and none of the surrounding edifices even come close to matching it.
What the hell is that? it looks like a giant pile of garbage.
Yeah, the State of Illinois building is pretty frigging ugly.
The new glass facade should make it extra exciting when it starts to fall apart. Hopefully by that time they will have cordoned off the area around it, to prevent decapitations and severed limbs from all that falling glass. Of course, this is North Korea, so they probably won’t bother to warn pedestrians to avoid the area.
Is this the one the guys went in with small cameras that had video capability? The one where they showed the kids putting on the giant show in the underground fortress and where they played ping-pong with a hostess at an otherwise empty travel rest stop on a completely empty highway?
I strongly recommend watching, even though after I posted the link I am having trouble finding links to all the episodes. There are 14 episodes to the whole thing. I think you can search on youtube for each episode individually.
The name “Experience Music Project” speaks volumes for liberal Seattle.
That looks like the Jolly Green Giant’s cucumber.
Now the second most ugly building - replacing itself ...
I’m thinking ... those are more than just really large windows up there on the four sides of that tower; think antennas, microwave dishes, maybe even RADAR operated from behind the RF-transparent panels up there. The pictures I see on the web don’t seem to show the ‘drapes’ ever being open either.
Another photo can be found here:
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1196222
I flew into London passing close by that building with the morning sun hitting it. It reminded me of a Christmas ornament.
That looks like a semi full of hog carcasses sideswiped a toxic waste dumpster before crashing into a Moroccan house of ill-repute.
After the fire went out, someone saw fit to install a satellite dish atop the wreckage.
More:
THE U.S. MISSION MAY BE SEVEN STORIES HIGH, BUT THE SOVIET EMBASSY, OOPS, I MEAN RUSSIAN EMBASSY COMPOUND IS A FEW MILES WEST OF THE CENTER OF HAVANA.
IT’S ABOUT 25 STORIES HIGH, AND WE’RE PRETTY SURE THAT THEY HAVE GOOD ACCESS TO THE COMMUNICATIONS OF THE U.S. NAVAL BASE AT KEY WEST.
THEIR STAFFERS ALL LIVE ON THE EMBASSY COMPOUND, AS OPPOSED TO THE YANKS AND THE BRITS WHO ARE DISPERSED
THROUGHOUT WEST HAVANA AND LIVE WITH THE CUBANS.
AMERICANS ARE OUT AND ABOUT, MIXING WITH THE CUBANS EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT. RUSSIANS ARE RARELY SEEN ON THE STREETS AROUND THEIR EMBASSY.
From:
http://cassius01.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/michael-moores-paradise/
(You do know) that is a ‘play’ (stage/acting) set for a theater presentation ...
Yes
That looks like a semi full of hog carcasses sideswiped a toxic waste dumpster before crashingHogs came to my mind too for some reason ...
I was about to post that. I always thought Boston City Hall looked like someone had dropped a pyramid from the sky, upside down.
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