House Construction in the DPRK

Construction of 10 000 flats is now under way in Pyongyang, the capital city of the DPRK.

The past ten years witnessed a golden age of construction in the country. A large number of houses were built in this period, for typical example, Changjon Street, Unha Scientists Street, Wisong Scientists Residential District, Mirae Scientists Street and Ryomyong Street in Pyongyang and houses for scientists and farmers in various other parts of the country including Hamhung, South Phyongan and South Hwanghae provinces. The third-stage project for sprucing up Samjiyon City is being pushed forward.

House construction in this period was characterized by ever-increasing scale and speed.

Whereas Unha Scientists Street built in September 2013 contained more than 1 000 flats, Mirae Scientists Street completed in October 2015 consisted of several thousand flats.

The former was finished in 7 months and the latter in a year. In particular, the framework of a 53-storey apartment building in Mirae Scientists Street was completed in 66 days.

The scale and work amount of the construction of Ryomyong Street which was inaugurated in April 2017 were twice the Mirae Scientists Street. The construction was a huge project which involved building over 40 skyscraping, high-rises and multi-storey apartment houses with more than 4 800 flats and some 40 public buildings, including nurseries and kindergartens on over 90 hectares and renovating some 70 apartment houses and public buildings.

The framework of the 200-m-high, 70-storey apartment building with the total floor space of over 120 000 square metres was completed in 74 days and its tiling in 13 days. In such a high speed, the construction of the street was brought to a successful completion in less than a year, even though it had to be suspended for three months due to the rehabilitation campaign in the flood-hit northern area in North Hamgyong Province.

In 2020 alone, houses for thousands of families sprang up on a nationwide scale.

What is noteworthy in the country’s house construction is that buildings were designed to be suited to their characters and regional features.

The apartment houses for the lecturers at Kim Il Sung University beside the Ryonghung crossroads in Pyongyang depict books piled up in tiers, and those for the lecturers at Kim Chaek University of Technology on the bank of the Taedong River look like sailing boats on the river.

A tower in the shape of electron orbit symbolic of science was installed on the roof of the 53-storey apartment building in Mirae Scientists Street, a harmonious combination of high-rise apartment buildings in the shape of towers and bundles.

Energy-saving technology and green architectural technology were introduced in the cozy multi-storey apartment houses and magnificent high-rises and skyscrapers in Ryomyong Street which was named so in the sense that the street represented future in architecture. (Ryomyong means dawn in Korean)

Multi-, several- and single-storey houses were built in the Yangdok Hot Spring Resort and Samjiyon City in the northern tip of the country, adding much to the scenery of the mountainous areas.

The several-storey houses at the Jungphyong Vegetable Greenhouse Farm in Kyongsong County, North Hamgyong Province, are varied in the form, and they are distributed in a peculiar style.

In the DPRK, house construction is reflected in the state policy and carried out in a planned way.

Its house construction was not conducted in ordinary circumstances. Everything was in short supply owing to the moves of the hostile forces to isolate and stifle the country, but the state focused its efforts on it to provide its people with civilized living conditions.

Although difficulties have recently cropped up due to the persisting worldwide health crisis, it has never stopped the construction of houses. On the contrary, it has been increasing investment in building houses. It is not because the country has something in reserve. It is only because of the consistent standpoint of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government that economic calculation must not be given precedence in the work for the good of the people and even a star must be plucked from the sky if it is their wish.

What is more surprising is that the houses are provided to workers, farmers, intellectuals and other working people free of charge.

As the people-first principle runs through the Party and state activities in a thoroughgoing way, the DPRK pushes ahead with house construction as a nationwide undertaking for the wellbeing of the people. As discussed and decided at the Eighth Congress of the WPK in January 2021, 50 000 and 25 000 houses will be built in five years respectively in Pyongyang and the Komdok area, a nonferrous mineral production base.

2021-04-02