[xochex]

traditional colour?
like the chinese use gold roof and red brick.

or simply a case of more blue tiles in stock....
you see blue roof in south korea and china too... largely industry.

[casinobonuscxz]

From different sources from a google search:
'The blue roofs were popular aesthetically for a short period in the 1970s, but you don't see new buildings these days with blue roofs. Most now are grey, but there are some that are orange.'

"blue roofs... during the Joseon dynasty a blue roof denoted royalty. Now it's just for show."

'As part of an effort to modernize Korea, the late President Park Chung Hee enforced the so-called "New Village Movement" (Saemaeul Undong in Korean) in the 1970s, aimed at developing agricultural villages. In 1971, 335 sacks of cement were offered to 33,267 rural towns, and used for transforming the tradition-bound straw-thatched houses [choga-jip] into roofing tiles. So the tile roofs of the most houses were produced during the nearly same period. Thus we can guess that "entire villages came to have new roofs" with certain designated and stereotyped colors. When it comes to colors, we have to take into account the Korean people's color sense in architecture. On the basis of theory of five elements [o-haeng]and yin and yang as well as the traditional Korean colors of obang-saek (five colors of red, blue, yellow, white and black) has been widely used and among those, red and blue have been the main colors. (Think of Korean temples decorated with splendid, primary colors, mostly red and blue). Of these colors, black and white, widely loved by Koreans since old times, were not appropriate for colors to arouse people's will to modernize their town. Also there is a view that in order to make the "New Village Movement" visually prominent, the ex-President Park might have wanted the roofs to have bright colors, particularly for the houses located along the highways.'

[Teeppoodiug]

Just browsing Google earth and decided to take a peek at North Korea and notice a lot of differently colour coded roofs, particularly blue roofs in the area of Pyongyang.

I dunno if this has been discussed before but what do they represent? Government instritutions? Hospitals and Schools? Or something else?

Did not find much on Google search.

[Infellgedq]

This thread is useless without... coordinates. [thumbdown]

[antiggill]

This thread is useless without... coordinates. [thumbdown]

You don't know how to find Korea on the map

[Infellgedq]

You don't know how to find Korea on the map

Well, I thought picking out some blue roofs in a capital city would be quite difficult without some specific coordinates of an example, but now that I've had a look, it's not as hard as I thought.

I don't know, maybe it's some kind of tradition (brings prosperity or something)?

[yK2VgoEI]

google is your friend

[frkksptn]

You don't know how to find Korea on the map

the country is rather big to simply find specific buildings.

[Teeppoodiug]

the country is rather big to simply find specific buildings.

Zero-in on the area of Pyongyang (the Capital, which Google Earth will do for you) and you will see plenety of them. You can't miss it.

[Sleflanna]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...07288&t=h&z=14

[arraxylap]

Guys. Noth Korea is a military regime and nothing there is done for beauty or tradition. It must be (but it's only my guess) some buildings marking, visible from the air. Notice, that all blue colors has identical shade. That it's mainly on big buildings. That it occurs all across the country, not only Pyoangayg area. And notice one more thing - there are also 'red roofs' too. They are much less common - in smaller towns you will find only one such building. Have a look at this places:

1) http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...09248&t=h&z=17

2) http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...26672&t=h&z=16

On both you will find a 'red roof' too.
Anybody has more information about it? I'm curious too.

witkacy26

[arraxylap]

Have a look at the towns in South Korea,
you will have an answer

ww

[flueftArete]

Me wants blue roof.

[ForumMasta]

Its a communist country. There's probably one firm in the whole country that produces roofing material for every building.

[Enjoymmsq]

Cliché but it has to be done: