indiana jones and the hotel of doom

aside from music, large and interesting architectural wonders are one of the other art forms I can really appreciate (paintings are nice and all, but...eh.) that said, while browsing through yahoo tonight, I came across an article that stated that construction on North Korea's "Hotel of Doom" was resuming, after supposedly 16 years of, well, abandonment.



look at that thing. isn't it incredibly ugly?

apparently the story behind that $750 million waste of concrete is that construction began in 1987 in the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, mostly as a jealous response to the coming of the Olympics to Seoul (South Korea, for you geographically igonorant) in 1988. unfortunately, 5 years and a Soviet collapse later, construction halted on the building because of lack of funds and/or lack of public interest, and all that's left is this concrete shell you see above. it still stands as a tribute to North Korea's economic problems. the building would have been 105 stories tall, with seven rotating restaurants, and 3000 hotel rooms. but if you think about it, who the hell would want to visit North Korea anyway?

I took this off of a blog of someone who had actually seen the thing:
"The Ryugyong Hotel is not visible at night. It is 105-floors, but since it has no electricity – since construction never finished and it is empty – it disappears into the blackness of a Pyongyang night. Then it reappears again at dawn, as though it were an apparition slowly manifesting in the morning fog. Official photos of Pyongyang show the building illuminated at night, but this is a result of photo manipulation."

ain't that some fucked up shit?

I'll admit that stuff like this really fascinates me. and finding time to blog about it and whatnot is a really great way to procrastinate from the many pages of midterm paper I must write.

on that note, I leave you with this google earth image from above:



now that's some crazy star wars shit.

"our fucking couches are haunted!"
-CV