Facelift for ‘worst building in history'

Poor old North Korea - the country was none too pleased when one of its buildings was dubbed ‘the worst building in the history of mankind' by Esquire Magazine - but now, the 105-storey hotel has been given a new look - so will it finally be able to shed its unfortunate nickname and become a swan?..

There's no escaping the fact that the Ryugyong Hotel, which dominates the Pyongyang skyline in North Korea, is currently one very ugly duckling.

In the years since its conception in 1987, it has also become something of a symbol of the nation's struggle - as it has never been completed or opened to guests due to financial issues.

As the North's economy took a real turn for the worse in the 1990s, so keen was it to escape from the ‘hotel of doom' as the Ryugyong Hotel was known, that it even went so far as to airbrush images of it our of photos of the city.

Currently, the grey concrete structure consists of three wings rising topped by several floors arranged in rings supposed to hold five revolving restaurants and an observation deck.

Egypt's Orascom Group began renovations last year and has attached new rings of steel and mirrored glass to the sides of the tower, with more to come. This has already improved its appearance dramatically.

It is suggested that the makeover is part of the North's effort to turn the state into a prosperous nation by 2012 and prove to the South that it could one day be an economic powerhouse.

But, extreme makeovers don't come cheap - this one is expected to cost a whopping £1 billion, which is more than 10 per cent of the North's yearly gross domestic product.