That 1stopkorea.com site is amazing.

It makes me really want to give a tour to a party of North Koreans and show them around Vegas.

An even older picture. Look at that concrete ... omg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/61/20...035f41a5_b.jpg

Looks like a giant drill bit. Its pretty cool theyre actually completing it. Maybe with every room in the new hotel they will have armed guards and video cameras so if any western businessmen say anything bad about glorious leader Kim Jong il... they get shot on site.

If worse comes to worse, they could turn the sides into the world's largest water slides.

Nah, the walls are too steep.:)

Looks like a pour line, when fresh concrete is poured on top of semi hardened (few hour old) concrete. Pretty harmless.

whoa, progress.

-

Is it even safe to build on top of such cracked concrete?

What's the statue on the top? Anybody know?

It's a construction crane :)

I wonder if that crane is still operational....after sitting for 20 years. I'd imagine it's rusted just a little bit.

I really think that the faulty concrete argument was bullshit. While i'm no expert on concrete it looks pretty solid to me, and after twenty years no less. If the concrete were actually faulty, don't you think at least some of it would have crumbled or fallen off?

I've always thought this is one of the coolest looking buildings on earth, I just didn't think it would ever be finished. East Asians aren't really known for their speedy construction projects anyway. Great Wall of China anyone?

Do you not pay attention to the Shanghai threads where new 250m+ towers sprout from the ground to top out in a year or so?

Oh for the love of god, will you stop embarassing yourself?

Man...you have no clue how difficult to build the great wall even by today's standard. :koko:

:uhh:

It takes 3 years to build a supertall in China (in Beijing its 1 and a half years), just over a year to build a skyscraper. A high spec highrise can be constructed in a few months.

This is because of the 24 hr night and day crews, and the army of workers, its the fastest building rates in the world.

The Beijing Capital Airport is in a 500 sq. mile complex with a terminal that is the worlds biggest building by floor space (10.6 million sq. ft) - 17% bigger than all the 5 terminals in London Heathrow put together, and designed to hold 150 jumbo jets at any one time. It took only 4 years to complete from drawing to opening ceremony, thanks to a construction army of 50,000:

http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/...ijingopens.jpg

• Video Link

I'm not a structural engineer by any stretch, but I'm just wondering why this building's exposed concrete is supposedly so unsafe after 20-some years in the rain and sun, but we generally don't question the structural integrity of the many (concrete facade) brutalist buildings from the 1960's, built in cities throughout Europe and North America? I know Boston City Hall and Marina City aren't the most popular buildings in the world, but they're not unsafe, right?

Or are we just not sure of the construction methods that put it there in the first place?

...
I'd also like to note that the Ryugyong has always reminded me of the Ministry of Truth. The most evil-looking building imaginable. Now it'll be shiny evil! (I actually like the completion rendering... kinda 1980's futurism?)

Perhaps we could consider the posibility that the NK government only plans to finish the exterior of the tower... It'd be fully clad, but still empty; on the postcards again, and outsiders wouldn't be able to know the difference... truly sinister architecture!

you know, i was thinking the exact same thing... finish the tower and yet still leave it empty

If they actually finish the tower it will be a money spinner as a hotel