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Redrawn Design of Hungnam College of Technology
2024.08.14.

When President Kim Il Sung gave field guidance to Hungnam Fertilizer Factory on June 4, Juche 37(1948), he paid special attention to the architectural design of the building of Hungnam University of Technology.

That day, he listened to the explanation about the architectural blueprint of the building. After hearing the fact that the designers of the factory had done it by themselves, he said that they thought a lot to make a design wonerfully.

The chairman of the Party Committee said with pride that they had devoted all their wisdom and talents to do it in a modern style, while reading technical books and looking at designs of university buildings of different countries with the pleasure of designing a large structure for the first time.

He highly appreciated their devotion and said that it was good to copy foreign countries, but it was necessary to take into full consideration the national characteristics and lifestyle, and that the advantages should be copied and things unsuited to us should be discarded.

In fact, the designers of the factory had never concerned about how to reflect Korean way of life in their design, but had only concerned with how to make the building look more magnificent and weighty, in the result the building was too high, dull and gloomy.

The officials who had been proud of the design felt remorseful. He said that the school we built should be modern and useful, adding that the corridor should be built in the centre not in the one side, the height of the room should suit to our people, and it should be built to get a lot of sun and have a good ventilation.

He pointed out another drawback of the design that tried to subtly copy others, and said:

All the matters from the design must be taken into account. The problems of bulding it elegant and useful with a little construction labor and materials are largely dependent on the design. And the dormitory should be built in a cultured and hygienic way, a little away from the building.

The officials were struck with admiration at the remarkable insight of President Kim Il Sung who immediately noticed the drawback of the design which had referred to the famous university case of other countries and taught the way to overcome it.

He said in a serious tone that it was not easy for us to build a large university building in the present situation and it was a big event from the state viewpoint. He stressed that it should be built as an everlasting building as it was a university building for training talented people who would shoulder the building of a new country.

Thanks to his unshakable will to build the university in our own style and into an everlasting building for the working class in Hungnam, the architectural design of Hungnam University of Technology was re-completed.