UPDATE 1 (2012-1-13): A reader sent in a picture taken from the recently published Architekturführer Pjöngjang (Order from Amazon here, and more on the book here and here). The book was published in May 2011, but inside is a picture containing the already renovated Mansu Hill Revolutionary History Museum. You can see the picture here:
The caption on the photo reads “Wall painting of Pyongyang from a birdseye view in the Paektusan Institute (photo taken 2007)”.
Thanks to a reader for sending this to me!
ORIGINAL POST (2011-10-11): A recent visitor to the DPRK took the following picture of the Korean Revolutionary History Museum on Mansu Hill:
See original photo here. If you compare it with the photo I took in 2004, you can see that there appears to be some serious renovations going on:
I wonder what new revolutionary feats are being added to the museum’s displays?
Additionally, the Kim Il-sung statue is no longer under wraps, so it appears that it was covered for its protection from construction debris, not because it was being altered in any substantial way.
I was there on September 2, 2011 and tourists were not allowed anywhere near the area because they don’t want us photographing construction and they don’t want photographs of Kim Il-Sung taken with construction in the background. We were told that they were adding an additional floor to the building pictured in preparation for 2012.