Photographic Series: North Korea, 2017
The Juche Tower, completed in 1982 and towering 170 metres above Pyongyang, stands as one of the most emblematic monuments of North Korea’s state aesthetics. Conceived to honour Kim Il Sung on his 70th birthday, the structure translates political ideology into architectural monumentality with an almost ritual clarity.
Situated on the east bank of the Taedong River, precisely aligned with Kim Il Sung Square across the water, the tower asserts itself as both a visual axis and an ideological counterpoint within the urban landscape. Its tapering, four-sided granite spire—150 metres high and clad in pale stone—is segmented into seventy divisions and constructed from 25,550 individual blocks, each representing a day in Kim Il Sung’s life. This numerical symbolism, typical of North Korean commemorative architecture, transforms biography into monumental permanence.
Crowning the structure is a 20-metre, 45-ton metal torch that burns with permanent illumination—a literal beacon meant to signify the guiding light of the Juche idea. In its fusion of mass, symmetry and ideological coding, the tower performs less as a mere landmark and more as a carefully orchestrated semiotic device within the state’s visual regime.
