North Korea’s $3.1 billion Ryugyong Hotel has never hosted a guest

This $3.1 billion hotel is taller than many of the most iconic buildings in the world, but it’s sat empty for decades.

The Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongnag, North Korea. Picture: Getty Images.

In 1987, ground was broken on a grand new hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Set to be the jewel in the country’s crown, the 330-metre-tall structure was designed to hold at least 3000 rooms across 105 storeys, with five lavish revolving restaurants at the top.

If construction had been completed when it was first expected, in 1992, the Ryugyong Hotel would have been the tallest hotel in the world.

Instead, the striking pyramid-shaped has never opened its doors to a single guest.

The Ryugyong Hotel has never hosted a guest. Picture: Getty Images.

What happened to the Ryugyong Hotel?

Construction on the ambitious structure halted in 1992, when the fall of the Soviet Union robbed North Korea of its largest trading partner and plunged the country into economic turmoil.

The Ryugyong Hotel reached its full architectural height, making it the tallest uninhabited building in the world, but its interior was never finished.

The skeleton structure, dubbed the “Hotel of Doom”, has become a stain on Pyongyang’s skyline and reputation. The North Korean government has photoshopped it out of images of the cityscape and removed it from printed maps.

The hotel still has no electricity and is believed to be uninhabitable. To make matters worse, its bare concrete skeleton was left exposed to the elements, making for serious structural integrity concerns.

Media reports suggest it would take another A$3.1 billion to complete the Ryugyong Hotel — around five per cent of North Korea’s entire GDP.

It’s believed to have structural issues. Picture: Getty Images.

Why wasn’t the Ryugyong Hotel finished?

The failure of the hotel has had multiple iterations.

In 2008, 16 years after construction first halted, Egyptian construction firm Orascom Group stepped in with plans to finish the mammoth project.

The firm covered the building in an array of glittering glass panels and installed telecommunications antennae, before announcing the hotel’s exterior was complete in 2011.

The next year, international hotel operator Kempinski announced it would be running the Ryugyong Hotel. A grand opening was planned for mid-2013, before being cancelled just a few months later when Kempinski mysteriously pulled out of the project.

The operator said only “initial discussions” had ever taken place about its running of the hotel, but no agreement was signed because “market entry is not currently possible”.

Images from a light show at the Ryugyong Hotel. Picture: YouTube.

How is the Ryugyong Hotel used now?

The hotel now acts as a kind of giant TV screen that projects propaganda for the North Korean regime.

Its three 100-metre-tall sides, which merge to create its distinctive pyramid shape, have been wrapped in more than 100,000 LED screens that display government slogans, animations and light shows.

It’s still unknown when — if ever — the Ryugyong Hotel will be complete.

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