By 
Construction complete?: The exterior of the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang appears to have been completed in this photograph taken Tuesday. The long-running construction project supervised by Egypt’s Orascom Group has been underway since 1987. Naguib Sawiris, the executive chairman of Orascom Telecom, paid a visit to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last month. / Yonhap
Via the Korea Times.
8:54 am on February 28th, 2011 1
Somewhat interesting that the company that refurbished the hotel is Egyptian.
9:31 am on February 28th, 2011 2
Looks like heavy traffic in Pyongyang.
11:02 am on February 28th, 2011 3
#1
Egyptian company is (or was) building/maintaining NK's 'CELLphone' service.
1:37 pm on February 28th, 2011 4
What a waste of money. Now they have to pay for the upkeep. Oh, right…They use slave labor in North Korea.
5:19 pm on February 28th, 2011 5
I have read many different things about this hotel. While the outside may be finished it is questionable if the structure will ever be able to be used. The concrete used in the structure is substandard and the elevator shafts reportedly are not straight. The NK ran out of funds to complete the construction for many years so the empty hulk was left to the elements for many years. I have read that only the top floors will be eventually opened including a restaurant & Japanese lounge. But I have also read that the Egyptian firm will try to completely finish the structure. The NK authorities want the construction finished by the 100th birth anniversary of KIS in April (I think it's April) of 2012. The hotels that are currently in NK are already pretty close to empty so to build a new one is really stupid but the NK wanted to build a hotel higher (105 stories) than a hotel built by a SK company in Singapore (103 stories). As John stated in comment #3 the Egyptian company got the contract to finish the construction of the hotel in return for the NK cellphone service contract. I think that the Egyptian company, Orascom (I think that's how you spell it) is going to regret the decision to get involved in this.
5:25 pm on February 28th, 2011 6
#5,
Yeah, one of the engineers involved in the construction, I believe, defected to the South and mentions that the concrete was of poor quality and that the elevator shaft was so crooked that it couldn't be repaired without weakening the structure.
My guess is that the lobby and the second floor only will be completed. The few travelers who visit Pyongyang will be told that the upper floor are occupied than that the elevator is closed for repairs.
5:31 pm on February 28th, 2011 7
…and Egyptian construction companies are notorious for cutting corners, based on what I've read.
5:42 pm on February 28th, 2011 8
Wouldn't that be a hoot if after the construction was completed that the whole thing just collapsed (I hope that no one gets injured or killed except if Kim Jong-Il or Kim Jong Un is there for the ceremony).
7:43 pm on February 28th, 2011 9
It looks like a space ship. Kim Jong Il's intergalactic love cruise?
4:00 am on March 1st, 2011 10
Seems to me North Korea is all bluff and no action. Seen and heard this same diatribe so many times before. Stomp at a growling teeth barred dog and more often than not he'll put his tail between his legs and take off like a scalded cat!
7:45 am on March 1st, 2011 11
How 'bout we all chip in to send Tom up there with a suitcase full of Bibles and US Chamber of Commerce literature?
8:27 am on March 1st, 2011 12
Supposedly people are starving there but construction of this monolith speaks otherwise.
3:45 pm on March 2nd, 2011 13
A monument to Kim Jong Il's micro penis.
4:25 pm on March 2nd, 2011 14
Teadrinker #13, If KJI's penis looks like that hotel then he really has some problems.
11:10 am on April 10th, 2011 15
I Like it very much!
A new red dragon emerges in the middle of the final crisis of capitalism
9:56 pm on June 28th, 2011 16
The Ryugyong Tower will be completed. Count on it. This seems to send a lot of westerners into a lather, but it’s the hard truth. In addition, Orascom announced the building would be mixed-use when it’s completed (hotel, offices, restaurants, apartments, etc.) instead of completely a hotel. Since there is a housing shortage in the DPRK as well as increasing levels of tourism and investment from China, it’s likely that most of the building will be well used.
One thing I’ve noticed about the criticisms is that they seem to be contradictory. One source says the building is irreparable, yet another source says the building will require several hundred million dollars in repairs (I thought it was irreparable?), and yet another source claims years of exposure to weather may cause the building to collapse! How can weather cause reinforced concrete to fail after two decades? Wouldn’t that mean that unreinforced concrete driveways would disintegrate in less than two decades? The Parthenon and the pyramids were built millennia ago with dimensional stones, and yet they have survived weather, looting, and even war (in the 17th century, the Parthenon was hit by 700 cannonballs during a Venetian siege — one of which struck and ignited a powder magazine inside, causing a massive explosion — yet remained standing) with minimal maintenance if any at all.
In fact, buildings made of weaker materials than the Ryugyong Tower (Usce Tower in Belgrade, Russian White House, Presidential Palace in Grozny, various apartment buildings in Grozny) have withstood airstrikes and shelling while remaining standing. That being said, it seems to me that most Western fantasies of the Ryugyong Tower collapsing are exactly that — unfounded fantasies.