From 1953 to his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung was invested in using architecture as a means of communicating power and to help define a state ideology of self-reliance. Successors to his rule, son Kim Jong Il and grandson Kim Jong Un, have followed suit. Such works as the quietly neoclassical Moranbong Theatre of 1954 or the Kamsusan Assembly Hall of 1977—later converted into a mausoleum for Kim Il Sung—are contrasted with muscular stadia, monumental squares, and bulky housing blocks, supplemented by polychrome interiors of theaters and gleaming hotel lobbies.

Wainwright has organized his exceptional, sometimes haunting photographic documentation of this “socialist fairyland” around six key sections: views of the city as a whole and housing in particular; monuments; museums and arts facilities; sports and education buildings; leisure and hospitality structures; and the stations of the Pyongyang Metro. While the journalist was not granted access to most areas outside Pyongyang, he includes a few visual surprises, such as the curvaceous Changgwang Hotel and Recreation Complex (1980) along the Pothong River.

Yet we cannot escape the overt political nature of North Korea’s built environment. In addition to the glimmers of hyperbolic color found amid Pyongyang’s bold public buildings, the images in this handsome volume reveal a city and country in which architecture signals its own kind of ceaseless expression of power.