Ryugyong Hotel is a supertall skyscraper in Pyongyang, North Korea, the building is known as the tallest unoccupied building in the world. Below are some facts and information of the building.
Name: Ryugyong Hotel (In Korean: 류경호텔 or 柳京호텔)
Ryugyong (류경 or 柳京) is a historical name of Pyongyang, where the building is located in,
The building is also referred to as the 105 Building, as the building has 105 floors.
Height: 330 meters (1083 feet)
Ryugyong Hotel is 1083 feet tall by architectural height and roof height, there's a small spire at the top of the building, increasing the total height to about 1120 ft.
Before the Lotte World Tower in Seoul completed in 2017, Ryugyong Hotel had been the tallest building in Korea.
The building is also the tallest unoccupied building in the world, having kept this title for more than 25 years.
Uses: Hotel, restaurant, residential, offices
Ryugyong Hotel was originally planned to be a pure hotel building that will house over 7000 guest rooms, and would become the tallest hotel in the world if completed before 1990s as expected, but it failed to come true.
In 2009, the developer said the tower will be mixed use, it will contain restaurants, apartments and business facilities other than hotels.
The cone structure atop the building will contain several revolving restaurants.
It's still uncertain who will operate the hotel in the building, the Germany hotel operator Kempinski was once reported planning to run the hotel in 2012, but as of now there's still no agreement signed. It was said the company had cancelled the plan in April 2013.
Design:
Ryugyong Hotel was designed by North Korean firm Baikdoosan Architects & Engineers, which is also the contractor of the project before 1992, the firm had built the building to its full height before the construction suspended in 1992.
Ryugyong Hotel is designed in a shape of pyramid, it's the tallest pyramid-shaped skyscraper in the world, surpassing the Shard in London and Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco.
Ryugyong Hotel is best known for its gigantic appearance, before the completion of Abraj Al Bait in Mecca, Ryugyong Hotel had been the visually most colossal skyscraper in the world. However, the total floor area of the tower is only 360,000 square meters, by comparison, Willis Tower in Chicago has 410,000 square meters of floor area. This is because the building is not a solid pyramid, the building is built above a Y-shape base, a feature that can also be found on many other skyscrapers in the world, which include Burj Khalifa, Jeddah Tower, Wuhan Greenland Center, and many more.
The building consists of three wings, forming a Y-shape which can be seen from above, each of these wings measures 100 meters (330 ft) in length, which makes the building appears gigantic, but the wing is only 18 meters (59 ft) thick, that's why the floor area of the building is not very large. However, considering Ryugyong Hotel is 112 meters shorter than Willis Tower, 360,000 square meters is still very high, this is the second largest floor area for a skyscraper under 400 meters, only after the Mori Tower in Tokyo.
As a pyramidal structure, all these wings are right triangles in vertical, with hypotenuses being sloped at a 75 degree angle, all three hypotenuses converge at the peak of the pyramid.
The pyramid is capped by a cone of which the bottom is 40 meters (130 ft) in diameter, the cone has a total of 14 floors, the lower 8 floors are intended to rotated to serve as revolving restaurants.
Development:
In 1980s, Asian countries witnessed a skyscraper construction boom, North Korea authority decided to build a world's tallest hotel building as a response to the completion of the 226-meter Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore, the authority intended to attract investors from western countries for first time through this tallest hotel.
Construction of Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987, it was contracted by the North Korean firm Baikdoosan Architects & Engineers, which also designed the building.
Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel was planned to be completed in June 1989 before 13th World Festival of Youth and Student begins, and to make it the tallest hotel in the world by that time. However, the construction difficulties delayed the completion date.
The building was constructed to its full height in 1992, after that the construction was suspended, as North Korea encountered the economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
After 1992, Ryugyong Hotel stood topped out, but no windows or cladding is installed, not to mention the interior fittings, just like a massive concrete shell, the unfinished building remained that for another 16 years with a decayed crane abandoned at the top of the building.
In April 2008 the Egyptian company Orascom Group was contracted to restart the construction for Ryugyong Hotel, the company completed the exterior work for the building in July 2011, aside from that an small telecommunication antenna was installed on the top of the building by them, by that time the cost on the construction for Ryugyong Hotel had surpassed 469 million pounds.
In October 2017, medias reported that the construction work has resumed on the site of Ryugyong Hotel.
As of 2018, Ryugyong Hotel remains unopened.