Pantages Theatre Lights

Pantages Theatre Lights, originally uploaded by disneymike.

This gives a small glimpse of the grandeur of this former deco movie palace.

Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang

Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, originally uploaded by Isaac Mao.

From Isaac Mao's caption:

Under the personality cult of leaders Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung, North Korea has become fiercely isolationist, nationalistic, and totalitarian. Despite being one of the planet's poorest countries, the communist state looks for any achievement to boost itself in eyes of the world. Its people know little or nothing of other nations except for the fact that Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is vastly superior.

The DPRK is also one of the world's most secretive nations. For a North Korean, contact with a foreigner can land one in jail… or worse. But there is one embarrassing secret that is hard for the government to hide, literally. It's the Ryugyong Hotel in the Potong District of North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang. It's difficult to hide because it's a massive, 105-story structure which dominates the city's skyline. It's an embarrassment because it's a complete engineering failure… its empty, dilapidated husk lurks over the capital, mocking the citizens of the proud country.

The hotel's story begins in 1987, when the North Korean government began construction at an estimated cost of $750 million, or 2% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). By comparison, 2% of the United States' GDP would be about $220 billion. Construction of the hotel was a cold war response to other massive skyscrapers in Asia, most notably South Korea's towering Stamford Hotel in Singapore. The North Koreans expected the project to bring in western investors as a first move into their nation. Investors were told to expect little oversight, and assured that casinos, nightclubs and lounges could be added. The North Korean government was so proud of the project that they added it to their official city maps before the project was even started, and they issued postage stamps touting the hotel before it was even half-finished.

The Ryugyong or "Capital of Willows" Hotel stands 1,083 feet tall, and it was planned to have 3,000 rooms and seven revolving restaurants. It has a total of 3.9 million square feet of floor space. The hotel would be the tallest hotel and seventh largest building in the world if it were finished. It would also have been the first building with over one hundred floors outside of New York or Chicago.

The first event scheduled to be held at the hotel was June 1989's World Festival of Youth and Students. The hotel was nowhere near ready for that event. Its construction was plagued with problems, and after five years construction completely ground to a halt due to a shortage of everything… especially funding and electricity. Work on the hotel has never resumed; the project was abandoned, leaving a lonely construction crane perched on its peak.

Pyongyang skyline, showing the Ryugyong Hotel on the top right.The shell of the building is complete but it has not been certified as safe for occupancy. There are no windows, fixtures, or fittings. The extremely poor quality concrete used in its construction has left the building sagging to such a great degree that the structure can never be finished without a massive overhaul.

The North Korean government is still looking for foreign investment, hopefully around $300 million. It's going to be hard to find such an investor considering the DPRK has such a tight stranglehold on visitors coming to their nation. The DPRK only allows about 130,000 tourists in an entire year, and almost none of them come to Pyongyang. To make matters worse, the nation appears to be in a never-ending drought and famine cycle that is not conducive for the operation of a five-star hotel.

Today, few North Koreans are willing to discuss the hotel with outsiders. The hotel, which was once found on city maps before the construction even began, has now been completely stricken from the official maps. Tour guides usually claim not to know where it is. Either a majority of the country is in a state of denial about the whole thing, or they avoid it.

Hotel Ukraine, Moscow

Photo: www.knifethrower.com

This is one of the seven sisters Stalinist buildings in Moscow.

From the site, www.gather.com:

Moscow's Seven Sisters are an architectural legacy of the most ambitious building program ever conceived. They were built at the orders of Jozef Stalin. These towers were built for the glorification of the Soviet State after WWII. The sisters were intended to rival the USA’s skyscrapers that had gone up in the 1930's. Each Sister was designed according to Stalin’s personal specifications and wishes. The architectural beauties are constructed in what is known as a ‘wedding-cake’ style, that concentrates the eye's focus toward the central tower. Stalin mandated that each and every one be given a spire, to differentiate them from their American counterparts. These huge buildings are distinctive in their design as well as their history.

Moscow's Seven Sisters (this one wasn't built)

This is Chechulin's draft for Zaryadye skyscraper from wikipedia's article on "Seven Sisters Moscow".
The Seven Sisters (called высотки, vysotki, the summits in Russian) are seven Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow, Russia. They were built 1947-1953 in an elaborate combination of Russian Baroque and Gothic styles, and the early twentieth century technology of American skyscrapers. Similar buildings were built in Warsaw, Chelyabinsk, Kiev and Riga.

I find these buildings very spectacular and beautiful. At the same time, I guess they're kind of fascist.

National Library, Vienna Austria

Library, originally uploaded by perreira.

Some people on flickr have photographs of this rococo masterpiece. I never knew about it.

Chrysler building

Bottom: Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc. The Mount Everest of Manhattan: The Silvered Peak of the Chrysler Building. 1930. Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4 x 6 13/16" (22.3 x 17.3 cm). The New York Times Collection. http://moma.org

Top: Probably a famous photograph, I don't have the credits.

This building is a concrete manifestation of fantasy. Does it represent the power and masculinity of modern USA in the 1920s? I don't know. It's amazing that such an art deco masterpiece got made and is still there.
http://moma.org

Gorgeous church in Rome

Theater - II, originally uploaded by rocdam.

Magical Places - St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg Church Domes
Originally uploaded by Brenda M.

Church built where Czar Alexander II was assassinated, hence its name, "Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood". from flickr

Alwyn Court Apartments

Photo by Berenice Abbott. This building built in 1909 is still there, an extravaganza of Victorian and Moorish elements. Alwyn Court, 174-182 West 58th Street and 911-917 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan (1938).

Magical places

Castle Neuschwanstein
Originally uploaded by chrisch.

Norman Foster Library FU Berlin

Norman Foster Library FU Berlin
Originally uploaded by svenwerk.

This library looks amazing! I would love to go there. Too bad I don't read German!