As in South Korea, where the large housing estates (ap'at'eu) have been one of the main mediations of the material and social construction of the city, in North Korea, collective housing (koch'eong sallim chip) has been central to socialist urban construction. The paper will analyze the evolution of residential spaces, from the application of the principles of socialist urbanism marked by the structure of the micro-district (1950s and 1960s) to the structuring of large complexes obeying the needs of an urbanism that is both ideological and functional (1970s and 1980s). After the famine of the 1990s, the period of the 2000s and 2010s, the large politically visible projects (Changjon, Mirae, Ryongmyong) as well as the more muted transformations (Sungri Avenue, one of the central axes) are in reality renovations of previous districts or axes. What role did collective housing play, materially and ideologically, in urban construction in North Korea? How has this role evolved and what is it today, when we know that a significant part of urban housing escapes the strict control of the state and has entered the private market? How do the dynamics observed today in Pyongyang differ or not from those more generally observed in Asian cities, or in so-called "post-socialist" countries? Is Pyongyang a livable city? To answer these questions and contribute to making North Korea not an exception to the rules but a relevant case, I draw on the perspective and methodologies of cultural geography, which combines the use of diverse sources (from official data to literature to specialized journals such as the North Korean journal Choseon keonch'uk North Korean Architecture) with the production of original materials collected over the course of four field missions: in 2007, in 2013, 2016, and 2018.
Mots clés : North Korea, collective housing, high rise housing, apartment, real estate, micro-district, urban renewal.
A104419VG