On November 14, 2006, General Kim Jong Il visited a health resort for farmers in Hamju County.
At the courtyard he watched the buildings arrayed against the background of a pine grove.
After a good while, he asked an official if they would have much snow there.
“Not so much,” answered the latter.
He asked the reason why the buildings were covered with a broach roof.
Noting that he could see similar buildings in other places, he said that structures should sustain local features and a broach roof was of a European style.
To lay out the resort in a peculiar way, the designers had toured several places and held debates over the architecture of buildings at health resorts of other countries. After all, they adopted this rare model to give the exterior of buildings distinctiveness.
The officials watched the buildings again, only to feel an aching void at the thought that they did not blend well with the local landscape.
Kim Jong Il said to the officials, “You should see if there is any other unit that seeks to design their buildings on a foreign style of architecture such as a broach roof, and ensure that national measures are taken to correct this tendency.”
Then he pointed at the dwelling houses of the employees of a power station on the opposite side of the health resort, saying that their roofs looked good. He advised that they should review the design of the buildings at the resort and make a further study of their exterior.
