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Hotel Of Doom Set To Open In North Korea After 25 Years Of Construction | The Expeditioner Travel Site

Hotel Of Doom Set To Open In North Korea After 25 Years Of Construction

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

hotelofdoom

The Ryugyong Hotel, the 105-story pyramid-shaped skyscraper under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea, otherwise known to the world as “The Hotel of Doom” for various reasons — not the least of which is due to its Death Star-like appearance and its location in the world’s most reclusive country — is on track to finally open in 2013, a mere 26 years after construction began in 1987. The announcement was made recently by Reto Wittwer, CEO of Kempinski, the German hotel company that will have the honor of running the massive hotel.

The hotel’s design itself is a three-sided pyramid “with walls that jag upwards at 75 degrees, capped by a series of concentric rings, [and was] described by one magazine simply as the worst building in the history of mankind.'”

Construction on the massive project has been on and off over the years, which accounts for its huge delay, and a report by ABC News back in 2006 even speculated that construction halted at various times over the years due to lack of money, skilled labor and even the raw materials to build it, a result of massive sanctions leveled against the country over the years.

And what of the argument that the opening of this odd wonder of the world may help to open up the country?

“The short answer is no,” Bruce Goslin, executive managing director of K2 Intelligence and an expert on the country, told CNBC.com. “Aside from the obvious facts that it’s a hermit country, ruled by a dictatorship and most of its population are starving, there aren’t many signs of it opening up soon.”

[Hotel of Doom by Joseph Ferris III/Flickr]

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