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 ...
**AMERICANS ARE OUT AND ABOUT, MIXING WITH THE CUBANS EVERY DAY**
This is exactly why we need to lift the travel restrictions and embargo. That will bring the regime down faster than anything else.
looks like a giant trailer
One of the “seven sisters” in Moscow, each having similar architecture.
1. Ahh, the corncobs. Been in those once or twice.
2. Frank Gehry, obviously. But forgot where and what.
3. Brasilia???
Actually, it belongs to Mrs. Giant.
Paint it yellow and give Ronald McDonald nightmares!
I think the inscription says in Latin, “Hey, we got a deal on arches”.
“This is exactly why we need to lift the travel restrictions and embargo. That will bring the regime down faster than anything else”
Probably not, the current generation of Cubans know nothing but the entitlement mentality. Older Cubans are much different.
Great place to purchase a kidney or heart.
We used to live by that ugly thing in Seattle and now we live by that ugly Marina bldg in Chicago. Where is that other one so I know where our next move will be to?
LOL!! The TRAILER IS the UGLIEST! But the MOST APPROPOS!!
It looks like a space ship out of a 1950s sci fi movie!
My thoughts exactly when I saw it, “Hey a large Mobile Home up on blocks!”
Castro and the Cuban regime probably enjoy about a 5% approval rating from any crop of Cubans. I have been there, I know.
I still think its a disguised long range missile gantry.
There is the matter of wind loading.
A glass and aluminum curtain wall is designed to withstand the load of wind pressing it in to the building. The connectors to the structure transfer vertical load,the weight, back to the concrete structure.
The article says one side is left open. If there is a strong wind through the building, those same connectors must carry the uniform outward force produced by the wind. That is, a good wind from the other side might just peel all that glass and aluminum off the side of the building.
The vertical shear stress in the connector fasteners is a different thing than the stress of the wind pushing outward
Good point.
That would be Brasilia: UGLIEST capital in the world.
2. EMP in Seattle. I used to live but three blocks from that monstrosity.
3. That is indeed the Brazilian Congress building in Brasilia. A damn shame the city wasn't built when it was originally intended to in the 19th Century.
BTW: Am I the only one who thinks that City Hall in said city looks like a block fortress with it's back turned to the city on all sides?
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