Imagine an easy-to-navigate, pedestrian- and car-friendly city with enough space to avoid the kind of congestion that typically threatens to choke similar places worldwide — a city whose carefully thought-out proportions is revealed in its broad boulevards (some, 100 meters wide) that open up into spacious squares with light-filled, airy, and sunny living spaces.
Le Corbusier and the other fathers of modern architecture would have approved of such a model place. Yet these principles have been adapted and twisted in such a way that the final product looks more like something from George Orwell's "1984." Welcome to Pyongyang.
As editor Philipp Meuser points out in the introduction, making a guide to the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea might be a futile editorial project as this is a place that eludes all forms of independent reporting. Yet Meuser and his collaborators have put together a huge amount of information that offers unprecedented insights into the capital of what is probably the most isolated country in the world. This tour de force of a book is a beautifully produced two-volume set featuring 450 color pictures of ambitiously designed community buildings, faceless mass housing developments, and a monumental emptiness that perhaps best defines this city.