The starchitects align in Seoul

*photo credit: Seoul National University Museum of Art (http://www.snumoa.org/Moa/Builds.asp)


This week will be dedicated to the foreign invasion! One cannot discuss contemporary Seoul without considering the deep tension that exists between the city and the outside. The physical manifestations of outside influence (or coercion) are imprinted throughout the city, yet these foreign artifacts are truly alien. Despite being a megalopolis, almost 98 percent of Seoul's inhabitants are ethnic Korean (http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog261/Brown_Seoul/demographics.html). The built environment does not necessarily betray this.

Seoul City Hall and a nearby art museum (contained in the walls of an ancient palace), are remnants of the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), designed by a German architect (WHAT'S HIS NAME). These buildings lie at the heart, as it were, of Seoul. It is a very complicated relationship to try to unpack. Built in a Western neo-classical style, imposed by the Japanese, there is a strange and twisted history existing just below the surface. Particularly intriguing is that these buildings are not facing the wrecking ball, the fate of some buildings, such as the Japanese General Government-General (Seoul Capitol) building (demolished 1995-6).

Following the war, the American military presence continues the lineage of seemingly disproportionate or incongruous foreignness in the central built environment of the city. This is best discussed on its own. I promise.

What this is meant to demonstrate is that the 20th century was an uncomfortable period of involuntary foreign predominance in the built environment. So how does one read the voluntary commission of Western starchitects in the 21st century?

Songdo IBD (International Business District) is a stark example of the complexities of master planning in the 21st century. Whilst its website cheers for a new economic day coming for this future city, it's hard to see the reality on the ground. It feels like the end of the Earth--if it can even be attributed to Earth. It is 100 million sq feet of seemingly unoccupied space (http://www.songdo.com/songdo-international-business-district/the-city/master-plan.aspx.) Of course, it is not nearly as vacant as I am claiming, but even if there are inhabitants, the sense is one of desolation. In person it is as beautiful as the mock-ups predicted due to a complete lack of humanity to sully it.

I really did take these pictures. If it looks like walking through a 3-D project proposal, that's exactly how it feels. At points. My sense was a great tension between the shiny newness, so surreal in its forwardness, and the abandonment more akin to ruins. Perhaps it was the searing 38C heat of a mid-summer day, but it felt like venturing around future ruins. Of course, it didn't help that some areas were abandoned. While a foot bridge in Central Park had two attendants polishing it, just a short walk away, unfinished bicycle and walking paths were overgrown. Tomorrow City, the showcase of the future, had gone empty.

Maybe when the trees grow more full Songdo will feel more hospitable, but for now, the only reprieve from the climate are the overbearing bridges. One of the few places where I actually encountered people was under one such bridge. A group of seniors were taking a rest in the only place that provided shade. An interesting juxtaposition, these elderly folks resting under a hyper-modern structure built on the very place where MacArthur first landed when they were young (there is a monument to this strange factoid.) The group seemed completely out-of-place. Like they had parachuted in from elsewhere. The Songdo Master plan does not purport the city to be a city for the elderly, but a place of cutting edge innovation for the (younger) entrepreneurial class. As the trees are still too young to provided reasonable shade, this group (the majority of the people in the park all together) were occupying a space in an unpredicted way. Sitting on the footings of the bridge rather than on the allotted benches a few metres away.

A different suburbia? 24 Hours in the Life of Sanbon

I recently moved into a new neighborhood called Sanbon. While it has its own name, it is essentially a carbon copy of so many developments in Korea. In this sense, it is interesting to observe. How do people utilize this seemingly unoriginal space? It has almost been taken for granted in North America that suburban "cookie-cutter" developments are anathema to human liveability. That the "instantaneous neighborhood" is a soulless, superficial and inferior version of the old urban neighborhoods.

It only takes a short stroll around one of these developments, with their cutesy street names (usually themed on something utterly ridiculous like songbirds, flowers or fairy tales) to understand the criticism. Despite being highly planned, their complete unoriginality makes them hard to navigate. I once got lost with my brother and his girlfriend while we tried to pass from her mother's house to her aunt's house no more than a kilometre away. Both her mother and her aunt had lived in the suburb for several years, yet we could not find our way due to the confusion that comes with ornithological rationality: do we take bluebird to blackbird to bluejay? or was it stellar's jay to hummingbird to bluejay? Bluejay road or bluejay crescent?

My very criticism of these developments has been repeated so many times that it's not really worth continuing here. What is interesting, however, is that such unoriginal space may not always be underutilized in the way we have come to assume. Parks that no one plays in and sidewalks that no one walks on are the trope. But is that truly universal?

I live in a generic apartment building called an officetel. Although it is comfortable, it is architecturally completely forgettable. There is no indication that an architect designed it specifically for the site; if you take the train and look out around, you can see the pattern everywhere. When I look out my window, the other apartment blocks are distinguishable from each other only based on their numbers.

The view from my apartment on the sixth floor. Looking across to Sanbon Station (Seoul Metro) in the foreground with the 1.2.3 residential area behind.

My building is at the end of the main commercial area of Sanbon that runs perpendicular to the train line. This space is designed like a grand mall, out of a reasonable human scale. There are few places to sit, and where there are permanent places to sit, they are often too far apart to facilitate a neighbourly discussion or not considerate of the Korean climate (who is going to sit on an unprotected slab of rock during the rainy season?) and yet...

24 hours in Sanbon

Sunday, September 18th, 2011

12 pm

This is the view of the main area from the opposing end. The large building that creates the wall at the end of the space is Sanbon Station. To the left of this position there is a multi-storey "E-Mart"(a box store general store modeled similar to Wal-mart) and to the right is a mixed-use shopping mall residential building (approx. 20 floors).

In contrast, this is the view from Sanbon Station's ramp. To the right of this point is my officetel apartment block.
12 pm is a generally low use time for this area, so it should be noted that this is a reflection of Sunday traffic. Living up to its suburban reputation, most workers are not present in Sanbon at this time, so the majority of people around are either the elderly, women or mothers with young children. On the weekend, far more families and students are present in the area.

Tuesday September 20, 2011

9-10pm