2011 marked the year of reforms and regime changes in various parts of the world, ending with the sudden demise of North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. His death has sparked speculations on the possible futures for the country, ranging from a possible uprising similar to the Arab Spring to the destabilization of the Korean Peninsula. While it is difficult to predict what will happen in this isolated and secretive country, the urban landscape of its capital, Pyongyang, is likely to change under a new leadership.
Architecture and urban planning have always been used as tools to translate abstract political and economic ideas into physical forms. Across political systems, leaders often mark their political legacy through large-scale infrastructural projects and architectural icons. While some of these projects are no more than self-glorifying, many have a long lasting impact on the way residents live and interact and how the city grows and redevelops.
Most would typically read Pyongyang as a dystopian theatrical stage set, with larger than life monuments in order to impress and intimidate its subjects into accepting the legitimacy of its regime. However, Pyongyang is more than just a playground for its leaders; it has been a social laboratory for its leaders to construct the mental and physical identity of a socialist nation through architecture.
Tasked with the reconstruction of Pyongyang, which was razed to the
ground at the end of the Korean War in 1953, Kim Il-sung, the founding father and “Great Leader” of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, provided the blueprint to rebuild the capital. It was choreographed into a sequence of experiences for both its residents and visitors with rows of austere residential blocks punctuated “at proper distances” with civic spaces, ranging from celebratory monuments to sport halls, theaters and museums.
In 1991, his son and future successor three years later, Kim Jong-il, penned a treatise outlining an extensive architecture theory — “Juche Architecture” — based on the country’s primary ideology of self-reliance. In “On Architecture”, he spoke at length about the significance and role of architecture, the design principles and the architect’s qualification. More importantly, he called for the harmony of national virtues and modernity in the design. Ironically, at the time when the rest of the world was caught up with exploring forms in the early ‘90s, the young Kim declared that “the real beauty of architecture lies not in its external form but in its content.”
While the criticality of this paper may be questionable, it nonetheless provides some insight into the workings of DPRK’s urban landscape and design mindset. With the recent passing of Kim, how will Pyongyang be developed under the leadership of the third generation Kim Jong-un? Will he call for more grand projects to seal the stamp of leadership approval?
Already, within a two year period, during my second visit to Pyongyang, the city has undergone rapid changes with construction is taking place at neck-breaking speed. In preparation for the 100th birthday of their “Great Leader” this year, road infrastructures have been improved and new civic landmarks are being built. On the longer term, 100,000 new apartment units have been planned, while the country has also designated a special economic zone, Rason, which is modeled after Singapore. The development of Pyongyang has even helped bordering Chinese cities like Dandong grow.
So which way will Pyongyang ultimately swing? Defend its socialist revolutionary ideals through throngs of commemorative monuments or open its floodgates to “decadent reactionary bourgeois” architectural icons? Perhaps an understanding of its existing conditions will help us better see the future of this city.
Monuments
“Monumental structures give the masses a deep understanding of the greatness of the leader of the working class and educate them to safeguard and consummate the leader’s cause down through generations.” — On Architecture, p. 62
Monument to the Party Founding
The monumentality of the city is given by the sheer size of apartments, civic buildings and monuments. These objects have been strategically placed within a continuous visual axis in order to create different readings of its monuments. The “Monument to the Party Founding” was erected to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Korean Workers’ Party. This 50-metres tall monument sits within a sea of apartment blocks while located along the same line of sight as to the statue of Kim Il-sung on Munsu Hill.
An apartment block
Even the apartment blocks are constructed along the proportions of the monuments, where each tower contains at least 1,000 units. The banality of an apartment block is compensated with its sheer monumental size. Interestingly, all Pyongyang apartment buildings have only one circulation type, where the public corridor is always internalised within the building and never exposed.
Ryugyong Hotel
Dubbed as the “Hotel of Doom”, Ryugyong Hotel was a project started in 1987 in response to a South Korean company constructing the world’s tallest hotel (said to be The Westin Stamford in Singapore). But funds ran dry, and the hotel was left unfinished for almost two decades before a foreign investor salvaged it in recent years. Standing at 330 metres tall, Ryugyong Hotel is visible everywhere in the city. .
Streets
“In order to ensure variety and three-dimensional quality in the formation of streets, it is essential to select the types of buildings properly and locate buildings with different characteristics and shapes in each of them.”
— On Architecture, p. 141
A street flanked with apartments
Lined with rows of apartment towers, the visual axes of the road are accentuated
A road that leads to nowhere
Several boulevards in Pyongyang have been designed to terminate at the maximum visible horizon, and together with rows of apartment towers on its side, give the impression of infinity.
Workers
“Success in architectural creation is achieved through the struggle of the architects and construction workers who support his leadership.”— On Architecture, p. 68
Workers waiting at the road side
There has been a construction boom in the capital the past two years as the city infrastructure is being upgraded in preparation for the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birthday in 2012. The massive scale of the project has mobilised many workers from different parts of the country to work 24/7 to meet the deadline.
Masses
“In the socialist society, where the masses are the masters of nature and society, the revolutionary idea of the working class guides architectural creation and reflects itself fully in architecture.”— On Architecture, p. 68
Performers practicing in a square.
Public spaces in the city are often transformed into a spectacle through mass dance and performances showcasing the collective identity of the masses. Apart from being a visual marker, the monument also acts as a space for informal public gathering.
Public gathering at the Monument to the Party Founding
Composition
“The sustaining of this stress gives prominence to the composition units, which play an important role in architectural formation, and thus ensures unity and variety in overall architectural formation.”— On Architecture, p. 141
Informal development within the block
Pyongyang is designed according to a strict composition of apartment blocks and open spaces that provide common amenities for residents. Such composition also aid in hiding the messy informal low-rise structures that develop over time. As such, it maintains the austere monumental image from the main street while allowing flexible evolution within the block’s interior.
Korean Style
“The great leader conceived a magnificent plan of reconstructing all our towns and cities to be as beautiful as the natural scenery of Korea, and ensured that national architecture was actively sustained and that modern Korean-style buildings were reasonably combined with it in urban construction.”— On Architecture, p. 83
Kumsusan Memorial Palace
The design of various civic buildings and monuments has been influenced by Western architectural layouts while adapting to local cultural aesthetics by using ornaments.
Arc of Triumph
The Arch of Triumph is obviously an adaptation of the Arc du Troimphe in Paris. Similar to the monument in Paris, this gate was erected to commemorate a war resistance movement, specifically Kim Il-sung’s role in the fight against Japanese rule from 1925 to 1945. Standing at 60-metres tall and 50-metres wide, the North Korean arch is slightly larger than the one Paris, and its crown has been lined with ornaments as a reinterpretation of the traditional Korean pitched roof.
