culture

Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK, is wonderful in the daytime and fascinating at night thanks to illuminations.

The illuminations of new streets in the city add to the characters of the streets as they are in keeping with the sentiments and aesthetic tastes of the Korean people.

According to Kim Yong Il, deputy director of the Songyong Decorative Illuminations Institute, the decorative illumination, which had been limited to lighting buildings with floodlight or installing LED lights at the frames of buildings to emphasize their skylines, began to develop as a new field during the construction of Songhwa Street inaugurated in 2022.

As the street, in general, is rhythmic in appearance and exhibits strong cubic effects and all its buildings were finished with cool colours, lots of whitish illuminations were used to decorate the buildings along with LED floodlights different in output to highlight the overall aspects of the buildings. The round-shaped overhead bridge built for practical use in harmony with various service facilities was also decorated with LED lines to emphasize its round shape and its roof illuminated with light blue lamps and its pillars done with overhead lights of warm colours to give a sense of lightness and dynamism.

It is the charm of decorative illumination techniques to ensure that even similar houses vary in visual effect by light system.

Hwasong, Rimhung and Jonwi streets built after Songhwa Street also incorporate formative and artistic features on a high level thanks to the distinctive combination of decorative illumination techniques to look more beautiful.

Decorative illumination of Rimhung Street can be cited as an example. Multi-storey and high-rise buildings are lighted with low-power LED floodlights of warm and white colours from nearby to emphasize their architectural features non-repetitively. And beautiful landscapes of various forms of flowerbeds and plant sculptures do not lose their charms even at night thanks to decorative illuminations.

Especially noticeable among the illuminations of the street are those of the Hwasong Taedonggang Beer House.

The beer jug-shaped ornament is illuminated with embedded LED lamps, the beer bottle-shaped columns are done with soft lights and the balconies and architectural components with nearby lights to add to the beauty of the beer house unlike in the daytime.

The decorative illumination of Jonwi Street provides a contrast to Hwasong and Rimhung streets.

The skyscrapers, including the iconic 80-storeyed apartment house, are illuminated upward with high-power warm coloured LED floodlights to make them look as if they are soaring in a formative and artistic way and service networks on the platform storeys are distinctively decorated with nearby lights in various forms, thus making the night view of the street conspicuous.

The third-stage 10 000-flat district in the Hwasong area can be said to intensively reflect the achievements and experience gained in the field of decorative illumination technology in recent years.

The overhead bridge-shaped service facility is decorated with LED line floods to add to the elegance of the structure and the arched decoration illuminated by decorative LED lights to ensure the formative artistic harmony of the arch and straight structures.

The different, non-repetitive and original elevations of the Amisan Motor Service Centre, the Hwasong Video Game Centre and other modern service facilities are also decorated with various lighting equipment pieces.

What is distinctive is that the top side of a skyscraper as the highest apartment house in the district of 10 000 flats at the third stage in the Hwasong area is equipped with illuminations designed to make the national flag of the DPRK shine when darkness sets in.

Looking at the flag which is visible even at a distance, people proudly visualize their future which will be rosier under the care of the socialist state along with the era of the Workers’ Party.