Ryugyong Hotel
Unfinished 330 m pyramid tower in Pyongyang, North Korea.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inside North Korea’s Abandoned Hotel of Doom | The B1M | subject | The hotel that has never had a guest, seen from its 99th floor. |
Inside North Korea’s Abandoned Hotel of Doom — The B1M (2025)
Source: Original · Readwise highlight
This is Ryugyong. It’s loomed over the city of Pyongyang for decades
- Role: subject
- In the video: The concrete pyramid was begun in 1987, stalled in the 1990s and resumed in 2008, when the exterior was finished; it has never hosted a guest. Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, one of two Westerners to go inside, describes walking the lower floors and riding up to the 99th-floor observation deck, where the city below looked “like a matte painting”. The video also covers the rumoured casino plan and Kempinski’s interest in 2012.
- Why it matters: The building is the whole subject: a symbol of ambition outrunning the economy that was meant to fill it.