Abstract
As the recondZite capital of the reclusive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Pyongyang is perhaps one of the most perplexing and peculiar cities on the planet. It is perplexing because of its isolation and secrecy whilst peculiar because of its singular ideological design and planning unseen elsewhere. It remains, in many ways, a mystery metropolis to much of the world.
In Model City Pyongyang, the architects Cristiano Bianchi and Kristina Drapić shed light on this shrouded city by showing sumptuous photographs of its bizarre, yet beautiful, urban landscape. Specifically, Bianchi and Drapić provide a vibrant visual journey through the so-called hermit kingdom’s cryptic capital featuring 200 fanciful illustrations of buildings, structures and streetscapes rarely seen by foreigners. Adopting a photographic rather than textual approach to analysing the city, they explain that they ‘chose to communicate what we saw and the impressions we later digested through our photographs’ (pp. 13–15). By offering this extraordinary visual access to Pyongyang’s severely restricted world, they immerse readers in a seemingly different dimension, one full of elaborate symbolism. Indeed, this unparalleled photographic perspective reveals the extreme and singular ideological design of a city unseen elsewhere.
Purposefully designed as the stately showcase of this self-proclaimed socialist paradise, Pyongyang is put forward as a people’s pleasure dome to envy. It is full of dramatic landscapes of grand monuments, striking statues, mammoth murals, colourful apartments, toy-like towers, lush parks and luxurious subway lines, all aligning with the city’s prodigious symbolic axes. Bianchi and Drapić describe how the late Dear Leader Kim Jong Il believed in architecture’s significance for a country’s political power and demanded that Pyongyang be ‘a city that communicates ideas to its citizens through its buildings’ (p. 12). The architecture and arrangement of Pyongyang, therefore, are not accidental but instead calculated to impose an enveloping and intimidating narrative on its residents and visitors alike.
Representing a ‘model city’, Pyongyang
embodies the dream of total planning . . . jettisoning planning restrictions, space–ratio guidelines, land costs and all of the other constraints that govern modern architecture, and returning to the idea of a city of the people, in which everything is designed in a single, cohesive vision. (p. 12)
The single, cohesive vision is North Korea’s version of totalitarian communism known as Juche, which combines communism, nationalism and Korean supremacy under the leadership of the Kim dynasty. As the urban manifestation of the regime’s totalizing ideology and worship of the Kims, Pyongyang is a dogmatic guide for directing people’s interactions and lived experiences within its boundaries.
Throughout the book, Bianchi and Drapić beautifully illustrate how reality and fantasy coexist and fact and fiction fold into each other in this city. Their photographs reveal ‘a city that is part [political] theatre, part [lived] reality, and completely alien’ (p. 15). To capture this ‘fictional reality’ (p. 15), their photographic approach establishes a dialogue with North Korean artistic representations; specifically, they adopt parallel techniques used by DPRK artists when depicting the country, sacred spaces and supreme leaders. Explaining, for example, their fascination with how the sky is portrayed in North Korean art – in either glaring gradients of rich colours or super-saturated sunrises or sunsets – they declare their homage to this style by combining classic architectural views of buildings framed by skies illustrated in gradients of pastel colours. By creating such a considered contrast between Pyongyang’s beautiful brutality and this bewitching backdrop, Bianchi and Drapić achieve ‘a visual alienation, where the real becomes unreal and the unreal becomes real’ (p. 15). The contrast is indeed striking in the sense that the real part – the structure or the city – looks or could be interpreted as unreal whilst the unreal part – the enriched sky – could be seen as real. Their photographs eloquently evoke North Korea’s iconic aesthetic that conflates authenticity and spuriousness. So expressive of this ‘fictional reality’ aesthetic are these pictures that they could conceivably be confused with the propaganda produced by this strange state.
The question could arise of whether this book glorifies or supports the North Korean government. It definitely does not. Addressing this question, Bianchi and Drapić confess that their interest in this subject was ‘sometimes seen with suspicion, as many outsiders agree with the logic of sanctions, boycott and isolation’; however, they argue that ‘isolation doesn’t benefit anyone, and that art and architecture can serve as an important means of cultural exchange’ (p. 15). Despite the actual and alleged human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime, it is important to remember that North Korea, including its capital, is a place where people live their daily lives. Yet, in most international coverage of the country, the world is mainly shown images of military parades, nuclear tests, and Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong. This book goes beyond these stereotypical images and shows Pyongyang from a fresh perspective: that is, not only the seat of a totalitarian system, but also a capital city possessing its own unique beauty. Through this book, Bianchi and Drapić successfully ‘open a window onto a different culture’ and, in so doing, expose us to ‘a different kind of beauty’ (p. 15).
Regarding my own position vis-à-vis this engaging book, I possess both personal familiarity with and scholarly interests in North Korea. In April 2007, I had the remarkable experience of touring and conducting research in this remote land and its eccentric capital. Being in North Korea was unlike any other experience. As Bianchi and Drapić accurately observe, ‘many foreigners visiting Pyongyang for the first time find it difficult to get to grips with both the built environment and how the society interacts with it’ (p. 15). Concurring with this observation, I similarly described elsewhere how ‘North Korea itself imprinted a strong, strange, and surreal impression upon me. I suppose, in a way, I am haunted by that place. In fact, after all these years, I still dream about it’ (Kosciejew, 2018: 247). I was therefore enthusiastic to return to Pyongyang through this book to see how it has changed in the intervening years since my visit.
Exploring the book’s colourful pages, and accompanying detailed diagrams and maps, Pyongyang’s haunting atmosphere was recreated for me. Feeling as though I re-entered the capital, I could clearly retrace my previous pathways throughout it, reorient myself to its orderly organization and identify most of the spotlighted locations. I could even determine from where on the streets or from what buildings different shots were taken; for example, I could tell that the sweeping views of Kim Il Sung Square and the wider city were shot from the viewing deck of the iconic Juche Tower, not only because of the specific angles but also since I, too, took similar pictures during my time there. Indeed, I could situate myself in the photographs, as well as compare them to my own pictures from all those years ago.
From my memories and pictures, Pyongyang remains largely as I experienced it. While there are some alterations to parts of the cityscape, including new skyscrapers and apartment blocks, they are not, for me, drastic changes. There are, however, two exceptions to this discernible consistency: namely, new statues devoted to Kim Jong Il and the addition of some entirely new neighbourhoods. First, when I was in North Korea in 2007, Kim Jong Il was the ‘Dear Leader’ and most statues were singularly focused on his father Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK. Yet, since his death and Kim Jong Un’s assumption of the country’s leadership in 2011, statues to Kim Jong Il have been erected, the most striking of which is the Mansu Hill Grand Monument, which in 2007 featured a giant bronze statue (22m/74ft) of Kim Il Sung (that, incidentally, I and my tour group had to bow to), but since then, and as this book displays, is now accompanied by a same-sized bronze statue of his son, Kim Jong Il. Second, as Bianchi and Drapić present in the section entitled ‘Pyongyang Next’, entirely new areas have been constructed, such as Ryomyong Street, Changjon Street and Mirae Scientists Street. The photographs of these areas show towers with ‘futuristic, toy-like shapes and exuberant palette[s] of pastel colours . . . [which have established] an unexpected and thoroughly original urban landscape’ (p. 174). Apparently, Pyongyang, like most other cities, continues to grow and change. Fortuitously, whilst composing this review (in the second quarter of 2022), additional new neighbourhoods have just been built in Pyongyang. Attaining international press coverage at the time of this writing, for instance, Kim Jong Un gifted North Korea’s most famous television anchor, Ri Chun-hee, a luxury condo within a brand-new elite riverside residential district (Yoon, 2022).
Ultimately, Model City Pyongyang presents a powerful photographic perspective on the North Korean capital. The book’s gorgeous pictures show the beauty and uniqueness of this isolated city. In this sense, significantly, Bianchi and Drapić put forward another, more nuanced, portrait of Pyongyang beyond what is typically conveyed in most media reportage. Transdisciplinary scholars from cultural studies, architectural studies, media and communications studies, and political science, as well as practising architects, artists and photographers, should find this book of interest, especially for seeing and learning about this city that is so strictly separated from the rest of the world. It should also be of interest to individuals intrigued by the DPRK and curious to see it beyond the sensational headlines and stereotypes. If nothing else, this book promises to become a visual time capsule of Pyongyang in the 2010s. Eventually, the winds of change will blow through the DPRK – hopefully for the better – and, depending on those changes, Pyongyang and all its peculiarities might not be preserved. In such a possible future scenario, Model City Pyongyang will serve as a poignant reminder of what it looked like, once upon an oppressive time.