우리의 서울 이야기, week 3: 광장

Once again, an interesting session, this time focusing on the role of plazas in Seoul.  First, a quick historic survey on Seoul plaza, one that (like the one at Seoul public library) elides entirely any role the plaza may have played in public dissent and activism.  Then, it was on to an interesting discussion of the role of public spaces--with lots of comparisons to Europe.  Finally, some discussion on where people meet, and their thoughts on Seoul's public spaces in general. 

Two days later (on Sunday, March 15), I'm at a conference on urban planning--the last day, and the reports of numerous acrhitects, planners and public administration people to re-make 세운 상가 . . .a brutalist structure that dates from the Park Chung Hee days.   The area, though, has a much longer history than that . . .The point of the conference, though, was to gesture to alternatives to "big plans": to argue for small-scale development that takes into account mixed land-use, local history, collaborative planning.  Jane Jacobs stuff and, not incidentally, urban ethnography.  

우리의 서울이야기, 3/6/17

Week 2 of this "talk concert" series focused on important historic periods in Seoul's history.  Again, a bit of a disconnect--Dr. Choi discussed historic roots of Seoul during Koryo and Choson, while people who reflected on significant times chose (in 2 out of 3 instances) for recent history, including post-1960s industrialization and the 88 Olympics.

우리의 서울 이야기

Several trips this week--one of the first (in a long series) of "branding" Seoul--우리의 서울 이야기--which bills itself as a "talk concert concerned with establishing Seoul's city brand".   The first talk seemed rather uncontroversial: is Seoul a "mountain" city or a "river" city?

서울 마을 미디어

The folks at 서울 마을미디어 conceiving of various projects as linked nodes in a network--similar to the metro, in a way, but I wonder about the edges linking these vertices.  What are they?

  

고진감래(苦盡甘來)

고진감래(苦盡甘來, Bitter, Sweet, Seoul) (2014) is a montage film made up of the 150 or so winning entries in a film contest on representing Seoul ("Seoul, Our Movie").  I remember the contest from summer of 2013, an, given that various KPOP stars plugged it, it looked (to me) like a tourism brochure rather than a serious project.  But the resulting film, directed by 박찬욱 (the famed director of "Old Boy") and his son, 박찬경, this seems altogether more dark and critical--while still giving lip service to the tourism industry.

The darker bits: contrasting 

북정마을

I'm still concerned over the fate of this neighborhood abutting Seoul's old, city walls (한양 도성). That said, Twitter does seem to reflect my concerns.  A recent search turned up mostly references to the irritating, SBS reality show, "Roommate".  Here's the network picture--not pretty.

동대문역사문화공원

Just a couple of photos from today.

First, the mammoth, Dongdaemun Design Plaza (동대문 디자인플라자) or DDP:

Second, the archaeological site preserved (sort of) at the center of the Plaza:

The sign: "Let's protect our valuable cultural heritage"