The Kumsusan Palace of the Sun is the supreme sanctuary of Juche that is associated with the ennobling revolutionary careers and exploits of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il.
President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il lie in state in the palace.
Originally, it was the Kumsusan Assembly Hall where President Kim Il Sung, founding father of the socialist Korea and pioneer of the Juche revolutionary cause, worked during the period from Juche 65 (1976) to Juche 83 (1994).
After his sudden demise in July Juche 83 (1994), Chairman Kim Jong Il saw to it that the hall was rebuilt into the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and the President lay in state there.
Saying that the hall was the eternal Presidential palace, Chairman Kim Jong Il declined the people’s earnest request that he should work there, and instead worked in his simple office and on board his train until the last moment of his life. Then he passed away in December Juche 100 (2011).
Considering the people’s regret for failing in his lifetime to have him reside and work in the splendid assembly hall, Marshal Kim Jong Un saw to it that he was preserved in the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in his lifetime appearance as it had been done with President Kim Il Sung, and had the palace renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun so as to highlight its character as the great hall of the Sun of mankind and laid out in an excellent way.
The palace was renovated into an incomparably sublime and impeccable monument to immortalizing the leaders in terms of content, form and size.
The palace houses the halls where the President and the Chairman are preserved in their lifetime appearances, the hall where their statues stand, the rooms where the national and foreign orders are showcased, and the halls where the coaches, battery-powered cars and vessel they used are exhibited. Outside the palace there are a plaza composed of extensive lawns, rare flower gardens, fountains and resting places and one-hundred-hectare arboretum. The fences and gates built by dressing blocks of stone, each weighing scores of tons and the corridor bring into bolder relief the appearance of the palace.
Access to the palace is provided by tram cars and buses.
The Kumsusuan Palace of the Sun was opened to the public on December 17, Juche 101 (2012), marking the first anniversary of the demise of Chairman Kim Jong Il.
In April Juche 102 (2013), the Seventh Session of the Twelfth Supreme People’s Assembly adopted the Law of the DPRK on the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, so as to eternally preserve and glorify the palace as a grand monument to the immortality of the leaders.
