Review | Pyongyang architecture: North Korean capital as not seen before in dreamy, pastel-coloured book filled with stunning photos

Model City Pyongyang offers dreamy photos of North Korea, but the realities of the secretive regime remain unexplored

The book would be improved by addressing how the architecture itself is used to exert control over North Koreans

Reading Time:2 minutes

Published: 11:00pm, 10 Dec 2019Updated: 6:39pm, 11 Dec 2019

Model City Pyongyang, by Cristiano Bianchi and Kristina Drapic. Published by MIT. 3/5 stars

If Pyongyang represents the architect’s dream of a model city, then it is also suggestive of a Potemkin village – built to trick others into thinking that a situation is better than it is.

In their new book Model City Pyongyang, architects Cristiano Bianchi and Kristina Drapic lead readers on a panoramic tour of the North Korean capital while borrowing the visual language of the country’s propaganda posters.

In these photographs, the sky takes on dreamy, pastel hues thanks to photo editing, copying the sense of “fictional reality” the authors say permeates their journeys through the city as foreign visitors.

North Korea’s May Day Stadium. Photo: Cristiano Bianchi and Kristina Drapic

For architects, part of Pyongyang’s appeal is its unique status as a city designed to express a single vision: North Korea’s juche state ideology, which roughly translates as “self-reliance”.

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