My Envelope is Bigger Than Yours
You want stats? You want bragging rights? Look no further! At 1,082.7ft tall, the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea is a one-of-a-kind luxury tower! This 105-story tower boasts a smattering of amenities that are bound to make your fellow oligarchs and authoritarian friends jealous. With eight revolving floors, five revolving restaurants, 3.9M square feet of space, and 7,665 guest rooms, this luxury tower shames any other nationalized architecture! Is it finished – nahhh, but who cares? Our flagship project has been topped out and clad in a beautiful glazing. She is not yet contributing to our economy (Kim Jong-un’s purse) but she is reminding our oppressed people just how wonderful and impressive our great nation is. We didn’t need “functionality” or “profitability.” Those silly western ideas have proven irrelevant over time. What we needed was another monument to our nation’s great leaders. Perception is key, and you will definitely be perceiving our envelope from miles away. Sustainability? Forget her, we’re interested in drama. Besides, is your envelope single-handedly fluffing the ego of a chubby manchild? Didn’t think so. My envelope is bigger than yours. Suck it.
So this was incredible. I really appreciate how you've channeled your inner authoritarian, oligarchical spirit in this post. Definitely an interesting way to present the topic of monuments with false functionality. Without knowing where the building was or any details, I would say the building is somebody trying to show off. It's (objectively) not a good building that pushes any sort of boundaries, the strange layout of the floors suggests that the goal isn't to obtain riches, and the location at the end of an avenue marks it as something to ogle at. Strange building, perfect delivery of absurdity.
ReplyDeleteThere are many renowned projects that I look at and think "they really only designed the aesthetic from the exterior" without really thinking of how complicated the rest of the project would be. It really is only a spectacle and not designed to function well.
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