Kim Jong Un Tours Apartment Housing Construction in Pyongyang

DPRK state media reported on 21 May (Wednesday) that Kim Jong Un (Kim Cho’ng-u’n) toured the construction of apartment housing for faculty of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology. Also in attendance were Choe T’ae Bok (Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Secretary for Science and Education and Chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly) and Lt. Gen. Ma Won Chun (Director of the National Defense Commission [NDC] Designing Department). KJU’s observed appearance was his attendance at a Moranbong Band concert to mark the 9th national meeting of artistes. After arriving at the site, Kim Jong Un was briefed about the construction work being done by Korean People’s Army [KPA] Unit #267. According to KCNA, KJU was “pleased to see the high-rise apartment houses” and remarked that ” the buildings with curved surface of their outer walls look like a sailing ship afloat on Taedong River.” He said that the apartment buildings “are fashionable structures reflecting the party’s intention to steadily improve formative art in architecture and masterpieces demonstrating the architecture of the DPRK rapidly developing after the workshop for workers in the field of construction.” KJU noted that “shops and other welfare and service facilities on the ground floor of the apartment houses look nice and stable and entrance between corridor and drawing room has been constructed well” and he ” “praised the soldier-builders for constructing them as required by the design ratified by the party.”

Alluding to the recent reported structural collapse of an apartment building in the P’yo’ngch’o’n District of Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un said that it was the work-style of the soldier-builders of KPA Unit 267 to fully meet the requirements of the construction method and successfully ensure the safety of the structure, holding high the slogan ‘Let us take responsibility for the safety of the project and guarantee its absolute quality for all eternity'” and called “on all those in the construction field to learn from their work style.” KJU also instructed “to push ahead with the frame project and inside and outside plastering and the production of furniture at the same time.” According to KCNA he said, “As I always emphasize, in order to achieve successes in scientific research it is necessary to solve in a responsible manner the issue of living of scientists and researchers who conduct it. There is nothing to spare for the educators dedicating their whole life to training talents of the country” and noted that “it is the party’s intention to build lots of such apartment houses to provide them to teachers and researchers in the future.”

Kim Jong Un “underlined the need to construct more apartment houses for the teachers and researchers of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology so that they may conduct education and scientific research free from worries in their living” and said that a “new street would be formed on the bank of River Taedong if more apartment houses for 500 families of the educators of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology and service facilities appear with the apartment houses now under construction as an axis.” He also said it would be good to “to call it “Mirae Kwahakja (Future Scientists) Street” and “called for making the layout of the interior and exterior of the street at the best level and thereby using their construction as an occasion in making a revolution in the construction once again.” KJU “proposed completing the construction by the Day of the Sun (birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung [Kim Il-so’ng]) next year by sending a powerful building force made up of service personnel to the construction site of the street” and said that he would “examine and decide on the issue of building more apartment houses for 500 families of educators of Kim Il Sung University as soon as possible.”

According to KCNA Kim Jong Un “called on the soldier-builders to complete the construction of the apartment houses for the educators of Kim Ch’aek University of Technology by the founding anniversary of the WPK so that they may be provided to educators and researchers of the university” and he “expressed his expectation and conviction that KPA Unit 267 would realize the intention of the WPK in practice.”