Relic No. 004Catalogued
The Hotel Without Guests
- Site
- Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang
- Era
- Begun 1987
- Material
- Concrete, glass, patience
- Intended use
- A luxury hotel
- Actual use
- The world’s tallest unoccupied building
- Status
- Unopened. One face now works as a giant screen.
PYONGYANG. Begun 1987. 105 floors. 330 metres. Work stopped in 1992, with the building at full height and nothing inside.
Work resumed in 2008. The glass went on in 2011. A hotel group announced in 2012 that it would run the place, and suspended the plan the following year.
By 2018 one face had become an LED screen showing animations.
The sage, it is written, acts without acting. The Ryugyong has not received a single guest in nearly forty years and is still the most famous hotel in the country. Few have practised non-action so completely.
Noted.
PIX TO FOLLOW. Wirephoto to be sourced from openly licensed archives.