Mansudae Overseas Projects is a construction company based in Jongphyong-dong, Phyongchon District, Pyongyang, North Korea.[1][2] It is the international commercial division of the Mansudae Art Studio.[3] As of August 2011, it had earned an estimated US$160 million overseas building monuments and memorials. As of 2015, Mansudae projects have been built in 17 countries: Angola, Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cambodia, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Germany, Malaysia, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe. The company uses North Korean artists, engineers, and construction workers rather than those of the local artists and workers. Sculptures, monuments, and buildings are in the style of North Korean socialist realism.[4][5][6][7]
Angola
Mansudae Overseas Projects constructed the President Agostinho Neto Cultural Centre in Luanda, Angola.[8][9]
Benin
Statue of Béhanzin in Benin
In Benin, the company has built a statue of Béhanzin.[10]
Angkor Panorama Museum was built next to the Angkor temples. The museum is operated jointly by APSARA and Mansudae. About half of 40 staff members are from North Korea. Unlike the earlier Mansudae's projects abroad, this time North Korea is attempting to make money by complementary sales of tickets and art. As of April 2016[update] the museum is projected to be completely handed over to Cambodians in twenty years, unless North Korean profits stay low, and the time needs to be extended. The number of visitors to the museum have been meager so far. However, Cambodian deputy director of the museum stated in an interview that in the present day it is very hard to make money with museums, and he remarked that marketing of the museum has not yet started.[11] As of January 2020, the museum has been shuttered indefinitely due to international sanctions compliance.[12]
The Tiglachin Monument, also known as the Derg Monument, is a 50-metre-tall (160 ft) pillar erected in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was donated by North Korea in 1984.[13] The monument has fallen into neglect.
Germany
Reconstruction of Frankfurt’s Fairy Tale Fountain [de], an art nouveau relic from 1910 that had been melted down for its metal during World War II. Germany is the only western nation to have a North Korean-built structure.[14]
In the north of Togo, close to the village of Sara-Kawa, the late president Gnassingbé Eyadéma and some of his closest aides were in a plane crash on 24 January 1974. Eyadéma survived. A monument was erected with a huge statue of Eyadéma.
^ abcdKirkwood, Meghan L. E. (2013). "Postindependence Architecture through North Korean Modes: Namibian Commissions of the Mansudae Overseas Project". A companion to modern African Art. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN9781444338379.
