On Korea's Jigsaw, Urban Footprint, and Urban Replanning

If you're a frequent flyer on my Korean errlines, you've had your fill of rants about recurring blunders in urban planning, the persistence of obsolete visions of urbanism, or (re)development equations that totally ignore plummeting demographics.

Well criticizing is easy. Urban harmony is like life or democracy: a very delicate, dynamic balance of power, a complex, evolutive system of checks and balances. No one will ever achieve perfection, and that's the beauty of it.

Besides, I see some glimmers of hope. Korea has eventually started worrying seriously about its shrinking population, seeking more inter-regional solidarity and cooperation, thinking about reviving ailing city centers in smarter ways... 

Korea is starting to realize that the real estate paradigm it's been addicted to for decades has become a Ponzi scheme, a sub-zero sum game where eventually everybody loses, even the wealthy ones who won't be able to resell their 'luxury condos' with a profit after paying much more for them than they would have for the most outrageous Manhattan penthouses.

Korea is starting to realize that it can't afford 'affordable housing' if that means building apartment blocks in greenbelt areas, that when a 'new town' succeeds somewhere, it means that somewhere else, an older town in depleting.

Korea is starting to realize that it can't keep adding new non-matching pieces to an ever growing jigsaw puzzle on an ever shrinking table, that these absurd urban footprint dynamics can't be sustained any longer.

The 5th Comprehensive National Territorial Plan, which covers the most critical 2020-2040 period, already mentions sustainability and other sound principles, but all is not set in marble and a lot has happened since it was released 5 years ago: rural desertification and fertility rate diminution accelerated dramatically, the GTX and other projects reshuffled whole decks... So a revised version is expected next year, for the 2026-2040 period.

Improving inter-regional solidarity and cooperation remains a key goal, particularly where they prove already challenging at the intra-regional level because of political divisions or fierce city rivalries. 

In addition to their autonomy, such special self-governing provinces as Jeollabuk-do or the recently upgraded 'Gangwon State' don't have to deal with special cities punching holes in their maps. In comparison, Gyeonggi-do must cope not only with giant neighbors nesting in its midst (Seoul and Incheon*), but also with a complex history of city creation explaining odd administrative shapes, or new towns stretching over different cities (e.g. Dongtan).

Granting a special status to a local government was generally done without much concern for the impacts around, which prevented all parties from reaching their full potential.

Wherever you stand on the fierce political fight over the creation of Sejong City (the left wanted to move the capital city to a new, central location to balance development across South Korea - the right refused to undermine Seoul and maintained part of the government there), you have to admit that from an urbanism point of view, things could have been done a bit better.

We're not talking Brasilia or Nusantara, a new capital erected far away from existing hubs: Sejong City seats right* next to the metropolitan city of Daejeon, South Korea's 5th largest cit, its central hub, and already the seat of several  central administrations, and right next to Cheongju, Chungcheongnam-do's capital.

Daejeon lies less than one hour away from Seoul via KTX but no, Sejong City must not enjoy express connectivity with the 'old' capital because then civil servants would commute instead of moving to Sejong**. And no, Daejeon's subway shouldn't come all the way to Sejong's vital parts. At its inception, it's almost as if Sejong City was designed as a local competitor instead of a national facilitator.

17 years after its creation, Sejong claims 400k souls, Daejeon remains around 1.5M, and Cheongju inched up from 650 to 720k. Common sense would have led to something more  rational, even simply two cities instead of three: the regional capital Cheongju and a-name-it-whatever-you-fancy-as-long-as-you-spare-local-susceptibilities national capital bis. If arranged harmoniously, I bet the latter would be today a thriving 2.5-3M strong metropolis.

Mind you, both Daejeon and Sejong are faring relatively well nowadays, but I'm not surprised to see the Sejong City - Daejeon - Chungnam - Chungbuk ensemble included in the potential revisions to Korea's 5th CNTP. Some consistency would clearly make the meta-region more competitive internationally - with the caveat that it wouldn't present an official one-stop front. 

Same with 'sudogwon', the capital region (Seoul-Incheon-Gyeonggi-do): unlike say the Ile de France region that encompasses Paris and its surroundings, it doesn't really exist as an official entity with representatives. It does make sense for the national government to be directly involved in an area representing half the nation's population and GDP, but the World's 4th metropolitan bloc can't fully leverage its potential. Of course, adding another administrative layer and the tensions that go with them, particularly with dwindling resources, may not necessarily be the panacea. Some even envision Daejeon + Sejong + Chungnam + Chungbuk as an 'ultra-wide megacity' - at least that would avoid the ego problem of who gets to be granted the regional capital status...

The debates promise to be complex and animated, but it's important to get every stakeholder involved, to identify all the impacts of each option, to learn from past mistakes, to minimize / optimize the urban footprint, to think urbanism beyond cities, towns, and other labels, wherever humans decided to settle or to build (be it a road, a remote factory, a farm, or even a field), and not to build for builders' sake.

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* If the cities are administratively continuous, there's no actual urban continuum... but then again, few cities in Korea excel at urban continuity.

** Likewise, I still can't stomach the fact that the railway from Seoul to Incheon Airport was deliberately delayed until a few years after inauguration because that would have hurt taxi businesses. Or that Songdo didn't have a subway from day one (hello? a ginormous polder built from scratch?). At least nowadays, if new big fat greenfield 'new towns' keep popping up, most of them include a railway connection.

MMCA Seoul

Last week, I visited the Blue House, east of Gyeongbokgung. Not the one to the north of the palace (Cheong Wa Dae), but the one SUH Do-ho erected in the new Seoul branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art:

"Home within home within home within home" by Do-ho SUH: a life-size hanok in a town house in a museum. SUH's fabric structures are always spectacular, and visitors to the MMCA Seoul can enjoy this one from various interesting angles, including from the mezzanine (here), and of course from within.

If you're familiar with this excuse for a blog, you've followed this museum project from the start, seen it change names several times, and even virtually toured it from the sky (see previous episodes, including "MOCA goes MMCA - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art" and "MMCA Seoul from above"). For years I've roamed the neighborhood, watched it unveil its old and new volumes, and counted the days to November 12th (official inauguration), feeling the same excitement as before the opening of Gwanghwamun Square*. In both cases, I knew the architecture wouldn't not be as great as it could have been, but I couldn't wait to see how a neighborhood I loved would integrate a new cultural landmark doubled with a new space opened to pedestrians. The kind of places that make urbanists and art lovers curious.

Don't worry, I won't follow the future MMCA Cheongju until its completion. The next branch of the museum is expected to open by 2015 in a former tobacco factory, and shall devote large volumes to the storage and conservation of artworks, a stimulating challenge for new media and interactive installations, and not only at the hardware level.

Hardware and software, artworks and museums, fabric homes within concrete shells... shall I start with the contents or the container? Maybe the latter, because I knew that whatever the circumstances, I was sure to experience an emotional moment in the old Gimusa staircase:

Summer 2009 (during the ASYAAF, a few months before the renovation started)

Back to half-round one, November 14, 2013. I'm so glad they kept the original handrail.

And once you've reached the rooftop, the view can't be more royal (from Bugaksan to Inwansan, from Cheong Wa Dae to Gyeongbokgung to Gwanghwamun).

So. I came back - again - on November 14th for a closer look, and still then, it was hard to tell if the architecture would work as planned in cruise mode: at that early stage, not all spaces were open, and not all connections between floors and buildings were operational. Except for the exhibition on the "Birth of a museum: the MMCA construction archive project", most of the upper floors, their cultural facilities and terraces were off limits for lambda visitors. The extensive museum shop didn't have a bookstore, and food-wise, the cafeteria was to start only on November 15th, the restaurant and digital book cafe a bit later.

Which left us the food court, but that didn't feel like a punition: we were by the window facing the Gyeonbokgung and majestic autumn trees, enjoying surprisingly delicious dishes, watching visitors and strollers cross the public madang with smiles on their faces (even those who were not sipping the free coffee offered to passers-by). Bonus: since we were eating in the food court, we could not see the cube hosting it, definitely not the finest moment in modern architecture.

Actually, the most interesting part of the complex remains the contrast between the old Gimusa's main building and the Office of Royal Genealogy, a newly rebuilt hanok. And as advertized, many things happen underground.

I'll leave it up to art critics to judge the inaugural exhibitions (which will end between February and July next year to introduce asynchronicity in the calendar of events). On paper, my veneration for The Blind Librarian drew me to the Borghesian "Aleph Project", and its impossible point of convergence, but of course you can only try to describe the spot where all points of views of the universe can be seen, and wait for sparks (I mean less literally than in Edwin van der Heide's "Evolving Spark Network"**). As the project unfolds, let's see if MMCA Seoul becomes Dali's "Gare de Perpignan".

MMCA capella? Classical music, underground location

Resolutely contemporary, the Seoul branch doesn't have any permanent collection, even if MMCA seizes the opportunity to display parts of its extensive collections, in "Zeitgeist Korea" for the inauguration. You'll find Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries among the "site specific projects", with the head-turner of an installation a tad less subversive than in the one I mentioned in a previous focus:

YHCHI @ MMCA Seoul - in the background, one of the 'madang' around which part of the museum unfolds.

For another inaugural exhibition, "Connecting_Unfolding", six curators selected seven artists, prolonging sometimes their dialogs in talks given in situ - here, Marc Lee with curator Bernhard Serexhe:

Marc Lee presents the 'soft' part of his "10,000 moving cities": when you select a city, the relevant images, videos, and tweets are sourced from the web, and projected in real-time on 3D city blocks.

There's no shortage of art spaces in Korea, in Seoul, and in the neighborhood, but this one can help lift contemporary arts in general and new media / interactive art in particular to new levels because it has the potential to bring new audiences, and to become a prestigious international crossroads. Its location and openness were key assets from the start, and I'm curious to see the creative / institutional platform work full swing.

• MMCA Seoul (check dates and book online: mmca.go.kr)

Seoul Village 2013
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* see "Gwanghwamun Square - Preview"
** in a completely different field, the ECM expo set the sensory experience bar very high in Seoul:

Tour de Korea

Last stage* for the 2010 "Tour de Corée" : tomorrow in Seoul, starting with a 5.1 km parade between Olympic Park and Mongchontoseong Station (between 9:50 and 9:59 AM).

A 49.2 km race will follow, with a finish planned at 11:04 at Sejongno Sageori, where the barnum shall pass 8 mn earlier for a loop around Gyeongbokgung and Jongmyo via Cheonghwadae, Samcheong-dong, and Jongro. Don't even think about driving your car in the area : come by subway and enjoy the show.

For the 10th edition, this finish on Sejongno mirrors Tour de France finishes on the Champs Elysees (even if in Paris, there's much more than one loop). Last year's winner came from Switzerland (Roger Beuchat).
Seoul Village 2010

* 10 stages overall :
- Jeju (177 km + 1 km parade)
- Gangjin-Yeosu (138.6 km + 4)
- Yeosu-Gunsan (219 km + 6)
- Gunsan-Dangjin (149.7 km + 1.4)
- Dangjin-Cheongju (162.2 km + 9.7)
- Cheongju-Gumi (198 km + 7.5)
- Gumi-Yeongju (144 km + 9.9)
- Yeongju-Yangyang (225.2 km + 9.5)
- Yangyang-Chuncheon (145.5 km + 9)
- Seoul (49.2 km + 5.1)