Pyongyang in a New Era

Dongwoo Yim

Ever since the speed of urban development has increased dramatically, urban transformation become a key word to understand a city. The character of urban transformation is crucially tied to various economic phenomena such as the flow of capital, and few can deny the impact of economic change on the physical form of a city.

As many case studies from Eastern Europe, Russia, and China suggest, the combination of economic growth and political transition has supplied the formula for exceptionally radical and quick transformations of a city. Since adopting market-oriented systems, former socialist cities have become "blue oceans" for new investments and real estate developments. Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea, is one of few socialist cities in the world that has not adopted this new economic model. On the other hand, Pyongyang is comparable to socialist cities of decades ago, in that it exhibits a strong potential to attract huge investments in real estate developments if and when it begins to open its market to other countries.

This change has, in fact, already begun to take place in Pyongyang. After sixty years of socialist rule, twenty-first century Pyongyang is showing early signs of change, and the developments are nothing short of unprecedented. It will usher in new paradigms, a new economic system, and a new real estate developments. Therefore, a new scenario for Pyongyang is needed and this change raises the following questions for architects, urbanists, and real estate developers: 1) what growth model can be suggested for Pyongyang? 2) where will the new developments be centered? 3) how will the urban transformation happen within the existing structure of Pyongyang?

Pyongyang

In spite of recent developments in its fledgling tourist industry, North Korea is still the most enclosed country in the world, and even Pyongyang, its capital city, remains under a veil. The information we currently have about Pyongyang primarily comes from media discussions of its political or social issues. In contrast to reports of its dictatorship, nuclear weapons programs, and the trend of nationwide starvation, the actual urban layout of Pyongyang has not received much attention.

However, Pyongyang was considered by other socialist countries to be an ideal socialist city when it was first reconstructed during the 1950s, instead of to be a city of veil or dictatorship. As a totally wiped-out city from the war, Pyongyang provided an experimental field in which socialist architects attempted to apply their ideal urban planning strategies to the real world. In the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-1953), Kim Il Sung, the leader of North Korea, decided to keep Pyongyang as the capital city of North Korea. Its layout reflected the ideology of socialism as well as victory of the war [1]. Left in complete shambles after the war, the reconstruction of Pyongyang afforded planners the rare opportunity to create a new urban structure from the ground up.

The current urban structure of Pyongyang is laid out based on the 1953 Master Plan [2] and several development strategies afterwards. Based on the master plan, Pyongyang was planned as an one-million population city that would stretch from the Taedong River to the Botond River; the density of city was to planned as 20-25%. This proposal captured the socialist concepts of constructing a proper socialist city in a well-planned way. Throughout the decades, Pyongyang realized a number of its socialist urban planning goals. First, to abolish disparities between urban and rural area, Pyongyang adopted self-productive unit; micro-district. Also, broad range of agriculture areas are developed next to the within the city. Second, to have a contrast to any other capitalist cities, Pyongyang developed heavily landscaped areas in the city. Lastly, and the most importantly, to strengthen and to propagate its ideology, Pyongyang developed series of symbolic and monumental squares and buildings in the city, especially in the city center.

As other socialist countries have already experienced, North Korea is also in the midst of transition to adopt the capitalist system in some ways. There are several indications that highlight this transition. For instance, the secretive Pyongyang government recently launched an experiment with the free market in 2002, beginning to deregulate prices and hiking salaries. Also, small vendors, which had been controlled strictly by the government, are starting to emerge at major squares, and even underground real estate deals are taking place.

Integral Growth

Integral Urbanism offers punctuation marks or reference points to "inflect" the landscape and our experience in it. These interventions activate "dead" or neutral spaces. They acknowledge and care for abandoned and neglected spaces. By increasing density of activity and perhaps building mass, they make connections between places, people, and experiences. There are numerous expressions of this attitude toward intervention. ...Bernard Tschumi's "events" are intended to punctuate space and time, as demonstrated by the "folies" at the Parc de la Villette in Paris. ... Michael Gamble and Jude LeBlanc have described their method for large-scale suburban strip retrofitting as "incremental urbanism." (Nan Ellin, Integral Urbanism)

At the point of transition, it is interesting to see what growth model Pyongyang will take for a new era. Amongst many other growth patterns, the integral growth model can be suggested for the future development of Pyongyang. Although a radical growth model with a compeltely new master plan can also be a possibility for a former socialist city, a consideration of the economic scale and existing idealistic socialist urban structure of Pyongyang suggests that the integral growth model is more likely to be adopted. As Ellin has observed, this integral growth model generates new development at "greyfield," which is defined as underutilized area, and activates those dead spaces in the city. Unlike ad-hoc master plan type of development, the model focuses on catalytic urban projects that can influence and generate other developments in the city. It is more dynamic and flexible model than the rigid master plan that Michael Speaks defines as "soft urbanism" [3].

Although its being a capital city of North Korea, Pyongyang's population is 3 million in the city out of 25 million in total in North Korea. It is very low ratio compared to Seoul that has 10 million people, which is a quarter of total population of South Korea. It is mostly because socialist countries had strict migration rules and the government controlled the population of the city. Also, they wanted to restrict expansions of cities so that they could minimize the difference between urban and rural area. This is why industrialization has achieved with less urban population growth and less spatial concentration than capitalist cities [4]. And no matter what economic shape it has currently, this fact gives us some idea of future economic scale of Pyongyang. Unlike exceptional cases in China, which has more than 17 million population only in Beijing, Pyongyang has small economic scale like most of former socialist cities in Eastern Europe, and this will influence the scale of investment for future development. Therefore, catalytic projects as armatures will more likely to happen in a new era in Pyongyang than a nation controlled master plan.

This integral growth model has its advantage of keeping the existing structure of the city. Since the incremental growth model focuses on individual catalytic projects instead of a large scale master plan, the transformation happens in smaller scale mostly through keeping existing fabrics of the city. As Pyongyang is identified with its current morphology that is a result of layering both the 1953 Master Plan and several development strategies throughout periods, it is very important to keep the socialist urban fabric of the city. And the new growth model will add additional layers for the new morphology of Pyongyang. Therefore, by choosing the integral growth model as its future development strategy, Pyongyang will keep its ideal socialist urban structure as the backbone and adopt a new logic of morphology on top of it.

Field of Potential Developments

Considering the integral growth model as the development plan of Pyongyang in the near future, it is interesting to see where those new developments will happen. In the transition to the market-oriented economy system, urban spaces that capture the strong character of socialism become potentially transformable spaces not only because of their locational and infrastructural advantages but also because of their lack of capitalist logic or land value. Hence, in most of former socialist cities' cases, city center become the most flexible and attractive place for new market-oriented driven developments and projects.

In a socialist city, city center is a showcase of symbolic space and buildings that propagate the ideology of socialism. And the lack of land value allowed planners and architects to use space in ways that are not seen in capitalist city center [5]. Thus, most of symbolic buildings, monumental squares, and administration facilities are concentrated in the city center of socialist city as opposed to business districts in most of capitalist cities. And this morphological difference in socialist city centers generates catalytic developments for transformation in a market-oriented era. Land starts to have value on it and the city center, which has good infrastructure system in general, becomes more competitive place for new development. Like other cases, the new urban transformation of Pyongyang may also start from the city center and this will both impact and generate other transformation in the city.

As mentioned above, the city center of Pyongyang has unique urban space and artifacts those cannot be easily found in capitalist city. Since it was reconstructed after the Korean War in early 1950s, Pyongyang has a long tradition of monumentalization and symbolization. City center of Pyongyang was developed based on the 1953 Master Plan, which was strongly influenced by socialist urban planning, and it introduced major squares as well as edifices in the area. Two major squares on each side of Taedong River are proposed as the heart of the city, and later on the axis between those squares become the development axis of the city. Kim Il Sung Square is one of those major squares on East side of the river. It is formed with a couple of symbolic buildings around it; the Grand Peoples' Study House, Ministry of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Agriculture, Korean Central History Museum, and Korean National Art Gallery. And it is approximately 75,000 sqm, which is 16th largest square in the world, and can accommodate nearly 100,00 people in the square. These symbolic institutional and administrative buildings and large open spaces in city center of Pyongyang are unique character of a socialist city and very transformable in a new era. In market-oriented economic system, which creates a land value, these socialist urban space and artifacts have less capital power than entrepreneurs. Therefore, competition between capitals will influence transformation of these spaces and programs.

Catalyst in Pyongyang

Icon-driven projects, particularly those that go beyond "logo" architecture, open a new dimension in the restructuring of a city. They provide new spaces that, if crafted correctly, can be significant contributors to the urbanity of a city at large. More importantly, icon-driven projects have the ability to operate at multiple levels and scales, and to endow diverse geographies with significant worldwide recognition. (Joan Busquets, Cities X-Lines) [6]

Then the final question is how the urban transformation will occur in the city center of Pyongyang. As proposed above, incremental growth may lead the transformation of the city and first several catalytic projects in the city center of Pyongyang will generate and influence developments in other parts of the city. Because, like Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao that Joan indicated as key building, those catalytic projects attracts people that eventually affects on the flow of capital, and finally influx of capital into the city generates other urban developments. And based on cases in former socialist cities, three development types are expected to arise in Pyongyang in a new era; new iconic project, re-programming of major facilities, and diverse use of surface.

First, for instance, Ryukyung hotel, which was originally planned as a generator for foreign investment and expected to attract $230 million with the project in 1980s and had been ceased construction in 1990s, just re-started construction of renovation with having a huge investment from an Egyptian development company. And this monolithic iconic project will drive influx of capital into the area just as Paul Andreu's National Grand Theater of China in Beijing. Also, re-programming of the The Grand People's Study House can be proposed as catalyst in the city. As Haussermann argued, many public institutions are forced to move out and stronger capital programs, such as office, leisure and other commercial development take over the area [7]. Hence, although it has not happened yet because of critical political reason, a new program that is more market-oriented will take over the institution in near future. Lastly, multi-layering the use of Kim Il Sung Square is considered as well in a new era of Pyongyang. As in the case of Constitution Square in Bucharest, Kim Il Sung Square can be used for various celebration of consumerism [8]. In fact, numbers of mobile vendors, that were prohibited before, has emerged in the square and this little change gives us a clue of new development.

And the scale of the square on the surface, major buildings around, and the subway line underground make it possible to have multi-layered market-oriented surface.

A New Era

In conclusion, Pyongyang is expected to have a new urban morphology in a new era with its adoption of market-oriented system. ever since the reconstruction after the Korean War in 1950s, the urban DNA of Pyongyang was formed based on its ideology; socialism and Juche idea [9]. Throughout periods, Pyongyang adopted several different development strategies starting from 1 53 Master Plan during the war. All these strategies have one thing in common that they always questioned how they are going to emphasize the ideology and realize it in a physical way. And the result of it is what Pyongyang has now.

Current change emerging in Pyongyang, however, stimulates to have a new development strategy other than what it had before. New system that Pyongyang just has adopted or will adopt in the near future, at least, a market-oriented system, is totally a new system to Pyongyang, and the difference will cause a morphological change in urban DNA of Pyongyang. And as we have seen from cases of former socialist cities those has started transformation already, a new urban morphology of Pyongyang will be a synthesized urban form combined with existing structure that is based on socialist ideology, instead of being a form that can be found in capitalist cities.

New development path on existing socialist urban structure, especially in the city center, will be a starting point for a new era of Pyongyang. It will be a catalyst in the city that influences and generates the rest of urban development, and at the same time it will reflect the socio-economic change of North Korea. Thus, at this point, for architects, urbanists, and real estate developers, it is interesting to see how the wave of market-oriented economy influences one of few major socialist city in the world, Pyongyang.

Notes

1 Chris Springer, Pyongyang: The hidden history of the North Korean capital. Entente Bt, 2003

2 The 1953 Master Plan for Pyongyang was proposed by North Korean architect Kim Jung Hee, and it was mostly influenced by the 1935 Moscow Plan. It reflected major socialist urban planning features such as, limited size of the city, landscape infrastructure in the city, and symbolic spaces.

3 Nan Ellin, Integral Urbanism. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.

4 Ivan Szelenyi, "Cities under socialism and after," in Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies, ed. Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe, and Ivan Szelenyi (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996)

5 Hartmut Haussermann, "From the socialist to the capitalist city: Experiences from Germany," in Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies, ed. Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe, and Ivan Szelenyi (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996)

6 Joan Busquets, Cities X-Lines. Cambridge, Harvard University, 2006

7 Hartmut Haussermann, "From the socialist to the capitalist city: Experiences from Germany," in Cities After Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies, ed. Gregory Andrusz, Michael Harloe, and Ivan Szelenyi (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996)

8 Augustin Ioan, "The peculiar history of (post)communist public places and spaces: Bucharest as a case study," in The Post-Socialist City, ed. Kiril Stanilov (New York: Springer, 2007)

9 Juche Idea is the ideology that Kim Il Sung first advocated in 1950s, and it was developed in 1960s having a meaning of independent North Korea in politics, economy, and national defense.