Established on July 22, 1982, as a designing research centre, the organ was later renamed Paektusan Architectural Designing Research Institute and then Paektusan Academy of Architecture on September 20, 1989.
The academy is housed in a building with a total floor space of 12,000 square metres, comprising three institutes including the designing institute with a dozen sections and the building materials institute with five sections, and some auxiliary facilities.
It is engaged mainly in designing architectural structures of national importance. The designers’ painstaking studies and researches were crystallized into hundreds of buildings, such as the Yanggakdo International Hotel that is towering in the middle of the picturesque Taedong River with a total floor space of 87,000 square metres, the Songdowon International Children’s Camp, the Monument to Party Founding, the Korean People’s Army April 25 Film Studio, the Central TV Broadcasting Hall, the Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Exhibition Hall, and the Pyongyang Conservatory. At the academy all designs are made by competent designing staff in the well-furnished studios.
Organized with graduates from different universities including the Pyongyang University of Construction and Building Materials, the Kim Chaek University of Technology, and the University of Natural Sciences, it has more than 100 holders of professorship, doctorate and other academic titles.
It is equipped with a hundred and dozens of latest computers and other facilities for designing. All the designing jobs from architectural planning to structural, electrical, heating and ventilation designings and to architectural environment and sanitation designings are done with the help of computers, and the communication within the designing office is also carried on by a computer network.
Great achievements have been made in the scientific research as well. First of all, a number of scientific and technical problems arising in designing some projects have been solved. In drawing up the design of the Korea Computer Centre in Pyongyang, they applied a new idea in planning the structure and the building processes to suit the specific local conditions, thereby making it possible to cut the building time considerably while reducing the building cost. Also, in the construction of the Kim Man Yu Hospital, they formed a clever conception to rationally settle the problem of architectural space, which was a crucial problem in designing, to suit the hygienic and health requirements.
The building materials researchers have carried out dozens of scientific tasks including the production of large air-conditioners, inorganic paints and asphalt adhesion and water-proof materials, which made it possible to use various home-made equipment and materials instead of depending on imports. Typical of them is the general-purpose gas absorption material, which won a silver medal at the 22nd Geneva International Invention and New Technology Show. The academy has so far obtained hundreds of state patents for inventions and new technological ideas.
The academy is visited by many foreign delegations and individuals who are interested in architecture. Since its inauguration more than 140 delegations and 1,000 foreigners have visited it.
(Korea Today, February 2006)
