03
Seoul City
evidence of the culture
ifty years ago, the capital of South Korea was a city of 2.4 million people struggling to recover from a devastating war. A decade later, fostered by a government-led industrial boom, Seoul’s population had more than doubled, and after another 20 years, it had almost doubled again. During those years, the city built millions of apartments to house the new residents and a modern infrastructure to move them around the city. The resulting landscape: bland functionality and a forest of drab 1960s-style apartment buildings. But that was then. Today, an activist city government is rebuilding Seoul in a hip, sustainable 21st-century image, with innovative parks, modern design and soaring architecture, the new trademark of the fourth-most-populous city in the world. In 2003 Mayor Lee Myung-bak, now the nation’s president, threw down the gauntlet by tearing down a 4-mile elevated highway completed in 1971 in pave-paradise style above a stream called the Cheonggyecheon that had once been the heart of the village that was ancient Seoul. Today, the rebuilt stream is offering residents a first taste of a new urban landscape that promises no less than a transformation of Seoul’s quality of life and its place in the world. The reincarnated Cheonggyecheon, its water crystal-clear, flows playfully over a concrete bed between banks of concrete, one story below the surrounding streets. On a hot day, young children sit on its banks under the watchful eyes of teachers. Tourists, meanwhile, step gingerly across on well-placed steppingstones when they aren’t snapping pictures of the stream’s colorful source, a dancing fountain at the edge of a large plaza, and of the 10-foot waterfall that launches its course. “Seoul is surrounded by beautiful rivers and mountains,” says architect Lee Sang-leem, president of the Space Group and one of Korea’s most respected architects. An honorary
By Roger Toll member of the American Institute of Architects, Lee strives to integrate Korean traditional design with modern forms. A century-old house, a treasure of classical style, sits in the middle of the firm’s compound, a reminder of a past its architects are not meant to ignore. “Traditional materials, harmonization, respect for nature and spatial perception are basic to our Korean cultural DNA,” Lee says. “Our architectural tradition goes beyond form into space. In this sense, the Cheonggyecheon stream represents not only the restoration of a creek, but the opening of new corridors to the sky in this heavily populated city. It is an example of what we can do to help the city.” Lee Myung-bak, as mayor, weathered major protests sparked by his proposed $300 million–plus freeway-demolition and stream-demolition project, despite having been nicknamed “Bulldozer Lee” when he led the Hyundai Group, Korea’s largest builder of public works and infrastructure. Nowadays, Seoul’s population is enamored with the result. Yoon Sook-young, the municipality’s director of global marketing, said that it was partly because of the project that Lee now occupies the Blue House, Korea’s presidential mansion. “The success of Cheonggyecheon has shown citizens that such innovations can improve the city’s environment and their lives,” he says. “The city government is launching a new era in remaking the city with world-class design and architecture, so we will be very busy.” Architects are delighted. At Seoul Design Olympiad 2008 last fall, which promoted Seoul as a world center for design, acclaimed U.S. architect Daniel Libeskind noted that Seoul’s
An activist city government is rebuilding Seoul in a hip, sustainable 21st-century image.
54 Sky february 2009
photos by roger toll
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South Korea’s capital is reinventing itself as Design Central.
: evidence of the culture new focus on design and architecture arises from cities’ heated efforts to attract international companies and increased tourism. “Cities can no longer sustain themselves on their own reputations and their own great pasts, because they are in a global competition,’’ he told attendees. “Seoul needs this breakthrough in innovation and architecture, shedding old notions and creating new neighborhoods and iconic places.’’ In 2007, the International Design Alliance selected Seoul as the 2010 World Design Capital in recognition of its ambitious plans to remake the city on a foundation of innovative design. “The interest in design as a basis for ongoing growth is very high in Seoul,” jury member Patricia Urquiola, an Italian furniture designer, commented at the time. “It is telling that W Hotels chose Seoul as its first location outside of North America.” The Han River Renaissance is another example of innovation and transformative thinking. Taking a cue from such cities as Paris, London and St.
“Traditional materials, harmonization, respect for nature and spatial perception are basic to our Korean cultural DNA,” says architect Lee Sang-leem. 56 Sky february 2009
Petersburg, Russia, Mayor Oh Se-hoon, Lee’s successor, wanted more focus on the Han River, which, flowing through the center of Seoul, had long been inaccessible due to freeways and buildings. The city is already moving fast in rebuilding the riverfront as a sustainable environment for recreation, relaxation, cultural pursuits and weekend festivals along both sides of its 20-mile stretch. Extensive parks, spaces for pools and marinas, environmental learning areas, cultural buildings, and a network of trails and bike paths linking the entire waterfront will help transform the present industrial-era city into a modern urban lifestyle environment. Completed three years ago, the 285acre Seoul Forest Park, once site of the king’s hunting grounds, is an example of the city’s green initiatives as well as remarkable civic goodwill. Citizens helped Seoul Green Trust plant 48,000 trees in the park and build a marsh that attracts more than 100 breeds of migrating birds. The public’s sense of ownership could account for the 50,000 to 100,000 visitors each weekend. Among its attractions: botanical and vegetable gardens to teach children about plant life, a deer park with 100 exotic deer—“to show children how animals and people can live together,” a ranger explains—fountains, sculptures, and the solar-panel powered water purification plant and pump for the Cheonggyecheon. The most ambitious effort is the $31 billion Yongsan “Dreamhub,” sprawling over 140 acres along the Han River on the site of a railway yard and bullishly scheduled for completion in 2016. Plans call for two luxury hotels, residential and commercial complexes, Asia’s largest shopping mall and what, at 152 stories, could be the world’s second-tallest building. A glamorous opera building, art galleries, theaters and a sculpture park are scheduled to rise on an island just offshore. Next door, a vast Central Park– like greenspace could take over the vast site of the old U.S. military base, Yongsan Garrison, where the first troops to be relocated moved out in December. A consortium led by Samsung and the National Pension Fund Service envision a dense, eco-friendly business-cum-
“Evidence of the Culture” offers intriguing examples of the cultural opportunities to be enjoyed at destinations served by Delta and its SkyTeam partners. To visit this month’s featured destination, Seoul, South Korea, flights can be booked on Delta and Delta subsidiary Northwest Airlines or on SkyTeam partner Korean Air. For more information about the SkyTeam travel network, turn to page 104 or visit www.skyteam.com. residential community, interlaced with parkland. It is intended to be a paradigm for visionary 21st-century urban development. “Seoul is one of the world’s hottest places for architecture,” says Seung H-Sang, a professor of architecture at Seoul National University and the first architect to be named Artist of the Year by Korea’s National Museum of Contemporary Art. “I appreciate the mayor’s emphasis on design as a top priority of his goals. Before, mayors only cared about economics, and if they thought about urban design at all, they considered it just cosmetic. “Sure, the initiatives are all about publicity and marketing,” he says with a laugh. “But it’s a lot more than that, too. The mayor’s office has brought 18 architects together to advise the city on how to accomplish their plans, so it seems genuine. Look at the amazing success of Cheonggyecheon. Maybe we’re doing it right after all.” Globe-trotting Roger Toll is a Sky contributing editor.