Will North Korea's 'Hotel of Doom' Ever Open?
More than three decades after construction began, North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel is still not finished. It was supposed to become the world's tallest hotel, but instead, the 330-meter-tall, 3,000-room tower holds a different record: the world's tallest unoccupied building.
Work first started on the Ryugyong Hotel in 1987. It was supposed to be finished by 1989, but it was delayed due to engineering problems. Construction then stopped altogether in 1992 as North Korea ran out of money after the Soviet Union collapsed. By then, the concrete structure of the building was finished at an estimated cost of $750 million, but the outside was incomplete and the windows had no glass.
For years the building, which is still North Korea's tallest, loomed over the city of Pyongyang as a reminder of the country's economic problems, a single crane still attached to its top. Foreign newspapers started calling it the "hotel of doom." The government even removed it from official photos of Pyongyang.
But in 2008, work began again. Orascom, an Egyptian company, agreed to help finish the Ryugyong Hotel as part of a deal allowing them to set up the country's 3G phone network. They removed the crane and covered the outside of the hotel in glass, finishing in 2011 at a cost of $180 million.
With the outside finished, new rumors started that the hotel would be opening. However, photos from 2012 showed that the inside was still just an empty concrete space. In 2018, LEDs were added to the outside of the tower, allowing it to display moving images of things like the North Korean flag. It was also given a new driveway and sign.
But it still hasn't opened. And nobody knows if it ever will.
