Inside the architecture of Pyongyang's Kim dynasty

A backgrounder on North Korea’s power structure

North Korea has been ruled by three generations of the Kim family since 1948, one of the world’s longest-running dynastic dictatorships, where absolute authority flows from the Supreme Leader. Read the Council on Foreign Relations' backgrounder to understand the country’s structure of power.

A look inside North Korea through photographs

What does life look like inside North Korea? Get a behind-the-scenes peek through 38 photos in the Atlantic.

An in-depth profile of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un seems to have known from an early age that he was destined to lead North Korea. Read this visual-rich essay by a former CIA analyst for a comprehensive profile of North Korea’s leadership. The Kim family dynasty cultivated strong...

North Korea's Kim Jong Un travels in a train with a helicopter and antiaircraft guns

The train, known as the Taeyangho (or "sun"), is a moving fortress, the country's equivalent of Air Force One. Its windows are bulletproof, exteriors built to withstand explosions, and heavy with armaments. Kim claims the train helps signal closeness to the people.

North Korea, in nine infographics

In recent decades, North Korea has spent nearly a third of its annual Gross Domestic Product on military spending, although data is not always forthcoming. This spending has funded major nuclear and missile projects as a means to deter attacks from...

Imagining the reunification of the Koreas

The idea of reunifying North and South Korea has been a geopolitical dream for years, though one that feels perpetually out of reach. That hasn’t kept some from imagining it, though. Reddit user Aofen created a set of maps that postulate what effect a hypothetical reunification would have on population numbers, birth rates, median income, political affiliation, and more.

Inside the most crowded place on Earth

Once the densest place on Earth, Kowloon Walled City was a chaotic labyrinth of stacked homes, hidden corridors, and thriving underground life.

South Korea's decades long effort to build a new capital

South Korea has spent decades trying to ease overcrowding in Seoul by developing Sejong City as a new administrative hub. Named after the king who created Hangul, Sejong was designed to decentralize government functions—but slow population growth and limited transit have complicated the plan.

The architectural evolution of New York City's Chinatown

Cityscapes continuously evolve, and each stage in their transformation tells a unique story. In Manhattan's Chinatown from the 1940s to today, the architecture has bloomed from an ethnic conclave for often mistreated migrants to a vibrant cultural hub today. See varying elevations and facades over time.

Take an architectural walking tour of the National Mall

Architect Nicholas Potts leads a walking tour of the National Mall, noting that many buildings adapt European neoclassical styles into an American form, such as replacing traditional motifs with corn cobs on the columns of the US Capitol building.

The hidden hallway behind Mount Rushmore and why it’s unfinished

Mount Rushmore was designed to be more than a massive monument to US presidents, and its ambitious plans were part of the reason why. This fascinating video explores its backstory, creation, and the hidden tunnel behind President Lincoln's head.

The White House was almost entirely rebuilt from 1948 to 1952

Structural failure forced President Harry Truman to vacate the White House in 1948. Engineers gutted the building, keeping only its exterior walls, and rebuilt the interior with a new steel frame, modern utilities, and reinforced foundations by 1952.

The art and architecture of the devastated Pompeii

Long buried under feet of ash, the city of Pompeii's discovery millennia later sparked a world of imagination and tragedy. See a collection of paintings, buildings, and photographs from the city all in one easy-to-browse gallery.

How the buildings you occupy may affect your brain health

Beautiful spaces filled with light and natural motifs aren't just aesthetic, but likely key to your health. Researchers had study participants view photographs of two distinct buildings, one designed with more natural elements while the other featured more abstract shapes and lines. Using electroencephalograph readings of each participant, they discovered participants had less brain inflammation while viewing the "biophilic," or natural, architecture. Learn more about the interdisciplinary framework of so-called neuroarchitecture here.

A digital archive of the Korean War

The Korean War largely shaped the evolution of the Cold War in Asia. Explore the Wilson Center’s digital collection of primary sources—including essays, profiles, popular documents, and a timeline—to learn about the Korean War. In 1945, the...

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

See an anamorphic illusion of a massive crashing wave in South Korea

An enormous aquarium with perpetually crashing waves has popped up amidst an urban landscape in South Korea, but don’t expect to hear the water sloshing around if you walk by. Designed by District, the elevated tank is actually a massive anamorphic illusion. The digital media company created the pub

Eleven architects collaborated to create the UN building in NYC

Renowned leaders in the field, accustomed to control over their projects, had to work together to complete the building. This quick article explores the tensions and cooperation of the architects to complete the UN building.

Compare the size of presidential residences around the globe

This video shows 3D renderings of official residences from the modest White House to sprawling estates like France's Élysée Palace and Russia's Kremlin, revealing contrasts in scale, architecture, and symbolism across nations.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

What Kitty Hawk looks like today, including a 60-foot memorial to the brothers

This short video surveys the flat, empty expanse near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina’s barrier islands, highlighting the area’s attractive conditions for early flight. Also shown are the stone monument to the Wright’s and replica wooden shacks like the ones they lived in those fateful years.

The three theories explaining how the pyramids were built

There's no consensus over how the ancient monuments were built, and no blueprints left behind. But centuries of study have produced three competing theories: a simple, massive external ramp, a more complex internal ramp, or a highly sophisticated water elevator.

Black Rock City is a remarkable portable town

While Burning Man hosts many impressive and unique architectural feats, these buildings also have notable issues of safety, accessibility, and reliability.

Completed in 2017, Apple's headquarters cost $5 billion dollars

Apple Park features a ring-shaped main building that accommodates over 12,000 employees, situated above a two-story underground parking garage equipped with its own traffic light system. Inspired by Stanford University's foliage, Steve Jobs hired one of their arborists to oversee the planting of over 9,000 indigenous trees.

The first home Frank Lloyd Wright designed alone was bold and geometric

A small residence sitting on the outskirts of Chicago, Wright’s first building, created entirely from his own artistic vision, was a home for his family. He would continue to live and work there for two decades after building it in 1889.

Study pinpoints where to hide during a nuclear blast

There’s no surviving the fireball of a nuclear bomb, but beyond that, there are certain spots indoors where you can try avoid the destructive shockwave.

How AR could reshape construction

Wired's Grant Imahara visits Los Angeles, where he witnesses how augmented reality will be a key component of how builders will do their jobs in the future.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.