Interior images taken inside North Korea’s tallest and most ironically iconic building have been published by a tour agency.
The Ryugyong Hotel, which remains unfinished more than 25 years after construction began, was, the BBC says, “intended to communicate to the world an impression of North Korea’s burgeoning wealth.”
Following a lack of funds after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is now symbolic for all the wrong reasons.
Not exactly homely: A concrete expanse within the Ryugyong Hotel's lobby
The planned seven revolving restaurants have never moved and nor has anyone admired the sights of Pyongyang from its enormous viewing platform.
Today, the 105-storey, pyramid shaped building boasts a shiny, modern exterior, masking the bare concrete interior.
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But it has been variously dubbed by locals as “The Hotel of Doom” or “The Phantom Hotel” and in 2008 it was labelled by Esquire magazine as “the worst building in the history of mankind”.
According to The Telegraph, the hotel, once intended as a grandiose monument to the country, went from being emblazoned across North Korean stamps, to being airbrushed out of official shots.