The skyline of Pyongyang, North Korea, is dominated by a massive, hulking structure,
outshining every other building in sight. It’s the largest building in North Korea,
but, on the inside, it’s more like a ghost town than a monument to a thriving modern metropolis.
Standing at a staggering 1,080 feet tall with 105 stories, The Ryungyong Hotel,
better known as the “Hotel of Doom,” is the tallest unoccupied building in the world. So,
what is it about the hotel that earned such a sinister nickname?
Like many other aspects of North Korea, the unfinished hotel has a dark and complex history.
Construction on the impressive-looking vacation destination was started in 1987
under Kim Il-sung, who was president of the republic at that time. The construction began
after the completion of the Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore, which was, at that time,
the tallest hotel in the world. The Ryungyong was meant to be an answer to this,
and a striking – if admittedly pretty petty – way to surpass the achievements of North
Korea’s neighbors. It was intended to be the tallest building in the world and the
largest hotel ever built, but, predictably, the construction process soon went south.
The hotel was built in the shape of a pyramid, or a large mountain,
and was intended to be topped with a 14-floor cone that would revolve and include restaurants,
shops, and ballrooms amongst its luxurious rooms. Many have noted
the hotel’s resemblance to the description of the Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s 1984,
the home of the government’s propaganda machine in the famous dystopian novel. Whether this is
deliberate or not is unknown, but it does carry a certain cruel irony nonetheless.
Initially, the construction of the hotel was funded by the Soviet Union. However,
when the Soviet Union collapsed, the funding was lost and the construction was stopped as
North Korea experienced a massive economic crash. After electrical issues, famine,
and a lack of quality materials hit the project, construction was officially stopped in 1992. The
hotel was left unfinished, with the outside built and standing at its full height, but the
inside incomplete and empty. It is during this time that the hotel began to earn its nickname,
the “Hotel of Doom,” and many media outlets referred to it as the “World’s Worst Building.”
People saw it as a sign of failure and a blight on the reputation of the North Korean nation;
quite literally the total opposite of the shining example the Kim dynasty had intended.
Then, suddenly and without acknowledgement of the long pause in its development,
construction resumed a full 16 years after it had been first stopped. In 2008, an Egyptian
company agreed to pay for the completion of the hotel. The resumed construction was announced,
along with a planned opening date of 2012, in celebration of Kim Il-sung’s 100th birthday. A
glass facade was added in 2011, and it seemed as though genuinely progress was being made.
Kempkinski, an international hotel operator famous for luxury establishments, agreed to
take over the hotel’s management. Then, in 2013, construction stopped again with no explanation.
They pushed the hotel’s opening date back even further, then eventually canceled it altogether.
To this day, the hotel has never been finished. Occasionally, rumors will circulate about new
construction, such as in 2017, when scaffolding appeared on the building, or in 2019, when new
signage was spotted above the hotel’s entrance. However, there has never been an official
announcement, and the hotel has yet to ever open. It is, however, still used for something.
In 2018, the lighting designer put together a light show made up of political slogans,
party symbols, and other government propaganda to be projected onto the surface of the building.
Apparently, it plays for hours every night, and as an empty husk of a building
covered in vapid propaganda, it serves as a pretty apt metaphor for the entire project.
The “Hotel of Doom” stands just as it did when its construction first began, just as empty and
just as haunting. The interior is a blank void, with the lights of the city outside illuminating
blank concrete and unfurnished rooms – which feels especially eerie when combined with the elaborate
facade outside. It’s almost more like a cardboard cutout of a hotel than the real thing. Maybe it
will be finished someday, but for the foreseeable future it continues to be a doomed project,
a vacant, ghostly reminder of a nationalistic dream unfinished and a promise unfulfilled.
Check out “Why The Dating Scene In North Korea Is Insane” and “What It Is Really Like Living
In North Korea?” for more startling facts about life inside the DPRK.