It is a tale of two buildings...1) fun for a skyscraper enthusiast to watch continue to develop in its odd way 2) a devestating blow to most citizens who fight near the passing trains for spilled grains of rice every day.

But #1 is more fun. Let's go with that.

WOW! I can't believe I'm actually seeing cladding on this thing! I never thought we would see the day!

The concrete appears to have been retrofitted or fixed up, look at the closeups of the top of the tower today versus those of years before. Concrete looks alot more fresh than it did before, and it doesn't appear to have any weathering.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I don't think they would or could afford to let one of their most prominent structures fall apart, especially now.

It's especially noticeable around the edges of the balconies.

I've always like the building, and now that it is being completed it is looking great. The glass is going to make it look really good.

I'm kinda dissapointed. I always kinda liked the concrete brutalist bleakness of this thing. Or maybe I just liked hating it. Either way I am oddly sad it is changing.

Couldn't they have just slapped some dinky windows into it from WindowWizards and left the concrete bare? That would be a nice compromise.

I suspect that this building will have other uses beside hotel for foreign visitors.

Wow, even more glass. Great to see so much progress.

Wow! Amazing piece of architecture. This is truly a world landmark. To see this happening after such a long time is simply amazing!

Eigenwelt, I felt the same way too. I liked seeing the building the way it is. It's just weird thinking about it. Now that the building will resume construction there will be no other structure of the kind. I'm sad that this is happening.

Anyways, we always see it from the front. But are there any pics from the back?

Wow. the lack of automobile traffic is shocking.

^ There really isn't much of any kind of traffic on the streets of Pyongyang.

^ Read this

http://1stopkorea.com/index.htm?nk-trip1.htm~mainframe

And you assume based on one person's rare experience?

I can't tell if this is a crack, shadowing, or something else.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...6/2qnp2iu1.jpg

from ZimasterX at SSC.

The fact that there is a mercedes on NK is shocking.......................or not

Huh?

But those "things" are all over the front... :koko:

I like how so many on here are structural engineering experts able to accurately determine weakness and deficiencies of structures from photographs taken over a kilometer away. I heard it quite often in the Burj Dubai threads on how it is insanely tall and hopefully they have done wind load testing because there is no way it could withstand a sand storm or that it would surely collapse on itself under all that weight.

....the world is full of rouge construction companies running around building structures from a napkin sketch and some concrete.

HA.....I was 5!

Nope. That's where the 2x4's are holding up the cardboard.:haha:

:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: in the link posted above they have a story similar to what you stated, jsut not about the ryugyong

Wait a sec; what exactly were you talking about?

^^^ It sounded to me like he just wanted us to read that interesting article...

Also, crazy to think that this has been around a good 2 years long than I have...

I absolutely love that this building is under construction again!
Such an intriguing tower, and all irrelevant politics aside - there are few building in the world that look as massive and intimidating as this one. I have to say I love it. :)

Looks like there is a Mercedes(Probably just another similar high cost car) in North Korea, I thought they had economic Communism? Is something changing there recently that I don't know about?

^Uhh, could it possibly be owned by a government spokesman?

I'm really surprised this is going forward, given how long it sat as a shell.

With the glass, it suddenly reminds me of Las Vegas

A slightly older picture showing construction of the base of the hotel:

http://i42.tinypic.com/2ypndiq.jpg

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