Inside North Korea

With the Panmunjom Declaration and its promises of a new era of peace fresh in our minds, Oliver Wainwright’s timely release of Inside North Korea offers a visual and informative glimpse of the country’s constructed landscape. Wainwright, architectural critic at The Guardian, has chosen a fascinating subject for his first book, and finds no shortage of material to cover.

Wainwright’s own rich pastel photographs as well as his comprehensive text highlight the country’s efforts to match its built environment to its sociopolitical and economic ideals or, in Wainwright’s words, to ‘turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland’. The book is written in English, French and German, each part filled with detailed images of the rarely published buildings. The sections, which are split into residential planning, cultural institutions, recreational facilities and urban infrastructure, not only cover finished structures but delve into their historical backgrounds and planning processes.

In all, Inside North Korea provides an extensive and provocative treatment of how architecture both shapes and is shaped by the power that surrounds it.