The story of Pyongyang is unique even in the annals
of model cities and modernist utopias. Entirely rebuilt
after the Korean War, North Korea’s capital city was
planned and fully implemented to embody a single
ideological vision. This extraordinary, richly illustrated
book takes readers on a photographic journey through
the architecture of North Korea’s “model” utopia.
Built as an ideological guide for its citizens, Pyongyang displays a unique architectural cohesion and
narrative. From the city’s large-scale monumental axes
to its symbolic sports halls and experimental housing, Model City offers comprehensive visual access to
Pyongyang’s restricted buildings. The architecture of
Pyongyang exists within a culture that favors construction and renewal over historical preservation, and in
recent years many buildings have been redeveloped to
remove interior features or render facades unrecognizable. Often kitschy,
colorful, and dramatic, Pyongyang’s architecture makes it difficult to
distinguish between reality and theater. As befits a culture that has carefully crafted its own narrative, the backdrop of each photograph in Model
City has been replaced with a color gradient, evoking the pastel skies of
North Korea’s propaganda posters.
Model City features two hundred color illustrations of buildings rarely
seen by non-North Koreans, diagrams and architectural drawings that
reveal the planning behind the city’s elaborate symbolism, and texts by
experts on Korean architecture—including an excerpt from On Architecture
by Kim Jong-il, father of the current leader Kim Jong-un.