actual progress on the Ryugyong Hotel

Just to put it out there, some new pictures from the Ryugyong Hotel, taken about 2 weeks ago from the SW corner.

Construction in North Korea

First, let’s look across the Yalu River to see how construction is done in Dandong right at the waterfront. You’ll see clean concrete, construction lifts and bamboo grids with green nets.

Let’s now go back to North Korea and see how construction is done here:

First, the material to build with has to be taken from riverbeds or quarries.

The stones are then sorted and classed by size.

In the next step, they’re broken to smaller fragments. A drum-like machine is depicted in the above photo on the left. The stones are put in there with giant bowling size iron balls to crush the material. The crushed stones are then used to heavily stretch cement to form rudimentary bricks.

Those bricks are used to build most of the structure…

…while real concrete and steel are used to build the necessary skeleton. Lack of proper tools and knowledge reveals a nasty finish.

Here’s an example of construction at the Ryugyong Hotel. You’ll see in the lower right corner the mounting brackets for the glass facade.

After the building is roughly finished, the rough spots are being covered with plaster, to paint it later on.

Click on the photo to enlarge. Some rudimentary construction outside Sinujiu. Instead of carts to transport material, they use two-man wooden stretcher like thing with one open end on one side to quickly poor stuff on the next pile.

Click on the photo to enlarge. Building a concrete road right outside Sinujiu.

The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang

Footage taken in Pyongyang in December 2008.

1st Footage: Unscheduled elevator stop in the Koryo Hotel on the 27th floor. I was supposed to ride the elevator right up to the top floor, where I would be met by a service attendand. The 27th floor, most like every other floor was dark and abandoned.
2nd Footage: The Ryugyong Hotel, seen from the southwestern side. The southerneastern side, facing the city center is being paneled with glass, just to make it look better. Notice the progress bars on the posters, showing the “people’s progress”.
3rd Footage: Pyongyang Central Station, secretly shot from the top of the Koryo Hotel.
4th Footage: An electric powered bus, passing westbound on Okryu Bridge.