North Korea may be on the move to build a new, sprawling university campus, according to blueprints recently revealed on state TV. The campus is set to take up one of central Pyongyang’s last remaining undeveloped riverside lots.

However, construction has yet to begin: Satellite imagery shows that the project’s planned location is still occupied by a number of small structures, including those associated with the nearby Pyongyang General Hospital project. 

The new university’s blueprints were designed by the Pyongyang University of Architecture, and were revealed prominently in the background of an interview for a special segment on the school, which aired on Korean Central Television (KCTV) on Nov. 26. 

Though the high-definition KCTV footage wasn’t perfectly clear, the campus’ location is apparent when comparing the blueprint shape to the land on Google Earth satellite imagery. Meanwhile, text visible in the KCTV report labels the water beside the blueprints as the “Taedong River” — the river running through Pyongyang. 

Other legible text on the blueprints revealed that a “foreigners residence” (외국인숙소) or dormitory is a planned part of the project. The dormitory is marked in orange and the Taedong River label in white in the image below:

A 3D render for a “university,” shown hanging on the wall in another part of the news segment, also matches the layout of the blueprints. It appears to contain many large buildings, but no new skyscrapers.

But existing buildings will need to be removed first if construction does eventually begin on the land, which lies just across the river from Pyongyang’s famous May Day Stadium. These include a complex of temporary structures used by workers building the Pyongyang General Hospital. The hospital is located just a few blocks away, and was originally scheduled to finish by Oct. 10 before it was indefinitely delayed.

In addition, the Taedonggang Aggregate Company (대동강골재사업소) built an industrial base on this land in 2012 to dredge and distribute gravel and sand. The company has shown no signs of vacating the land, according to the most recent satellite imagery, and state media highlighted it for providing materials to the hospital construction site in articles this year.

The above timelapse of the new university campus’s planned site shows that a complex of structures which appeared there in mid-March 2020, around the same time construction began on the Pyongyang General Hospital, have yet to be taken down. | Images: © 2020 Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission.

If the university campus project does not materialize anytime soon, it would not be the first time Pyongyang’s ambitious architectural designers saw their plans languish in limbo. 

For example, large-scale plans to develop the area surrounding the infamous Ryugyong Hotel have apparently existed for years, but have not yet come to fruition.

And even if North Korea’s flashy new designs do begin to take shape, these projects can take years to finish. For instance, a riverside marine sports headquarters and a new tower built for the DPRK’s Kumgang Group corporation remain unfinished in Pyongyang.

Since mid-2019, North Korea has upgraded or expanded other top schools in its capital city. These include new buildings at the University of International Relations, the Kim Il Sung Military University and the Kim Jong Un National Defense University. An unidentified, large sci-tech campus next to Kim Il Sung University was also newly built in 2019, but has yet to officially open.

Edited by Kelly Kasulis