Scale Model Revised

One September day in 1978 President Kim Il Sung visited the then University of Construction and Building Materials Industry to examine a scale model of the planned Grand People's Study House prepared by the university.

Studying it in a showplace the President said that it looked like a Buddhist pagoda or temple and that even if it was to be built as a building of Korean style, it should not be modelled after an ancient style as it was. In order to make the building different from a Buddhist pagoda or temple the odds and ends in the centre of the building should be removed so that the building could become an integral whole, he stressed and said: If the stylobate is left intact with its main part and the upper part lengthened as a whole it would not look like a Buddhist pagoda and it would not give the impression that it was all pointed.

In this way the President instantly grasped and corrected the mistakes that the designers of the university had made without a good understanding of the combination of national and modern characters in designing the building.

A few months later a model of the study house was completed based on correct combination of national and modern characters, and the building was erected on Namsan Hill, a fine spot the President had spared for a long time.