Ryugyong Hotel

The Ryugyong Hotel is an unfinished concrete skyscraper. It is intended for use as a hotel in Sojang-dong, in the Potong-gang District of Pyongyang, North Korea. The hotel's name comes from one of the historic names for Pyongyang: Ryugyong, or "capital of willows." Its 105 stories rise to a height of 330 m (1,083 ft), and it contains 360,000 m² (3.9 million square feet) of floor space, making it the most prominent feature of the city’s skyline and by far the largest structure in the country. At one time, it would have been the world's tallest hotel. Esquire dubbed it "The Worst Building in the History of Mankind" and noted that the government of North Korea has airbrushed the building out of pictures. Over the years, the skyscraper has earned such nicknames as the "Hotel of Doom," "Phantom Hotel," and "Phantom Pyramid."Construction began in 1987 and ceased in 1992, due to the government's financial difficulties. The unfinished hotel remained untouched until April 2008, when construction resumed after being inactive 16 years.