Sneak peek inside Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park

After 8 years, the final (201)4/3/21 countdown.

The Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park will be inaugurated on March 21, 2014, but I had the pleasure to visit it last month with new friends*. A perfect occasion to challenge my initial impressions of Seoul's newest landmark.

As you know (see links at the end of this post), said "initial impressions" were not so positive. Yet I was ready to change my mind, and happily looking forward to discovering Zaha Hadid's work from the inside.

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To put it bluntly, at the beginning, I was not convinced by the project selected by then Mayor OH Se-hoon, consistent with his grand World Design City Seoul 2010 vision that would also give us such architectural wonders as a Tsunami City Hall** or the unthinkable yet not unsinkable Seoul Floating Island. Obviously, OH tended to confuse "Design City" with "spectacular displays of design for design's sake across the city", adding a very personal definition to the word "design" itself (who cares about the function anyway).

Frankly, Zaha Hadid's cartoonesque rendering of her DDP didn't help:

And that was already an upgraded version, which (symbolically) integrated bits of Seoul fortress: significant sites and artifacts had been uncovered during the demolition of the old Dongdaemun Stadium***, and the city decently couldn't annihilate them altogether. To me, the project still smelled a bit like design-for-design's-sake spirit, which often proves to be the best recipe for planned obsolescence:

"(NB: about the old stadium) The green giant remained as an embarrassing dinosaur miraculously forsaken by evolution. Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) may well become the next generation embarrassing green dinosaur. I like the idea of bringing disruption, and there is an interesting organic touch to the main building... but instead of environmental friendliness, it evokes (judging by the models at least) a plastic toy or one of the countless attractions recently built in minor league cities pretending to play in major leagues. To me, the gizmo already looks obsolete."

When I wrote these waspish lines, I had Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao in mind: cities struggling to catch attention? hiring superstar architects more known for spectacular protuberances than for discretion? letting them freely play around with their software, without many editorial constraints? ending up with the empty shell of cultural alibis, waiting to be filled with limited resources already stretched beyond their limits?... At least the actual client, Guggenheim, knew a thing or two about design and architecture. And their Bilbao franchise was not centrally located, but in an urban dead-end. Frank(gehri)ly, the result is by no means a sore sight for eyes, but a spectacular venue deliberately put on a pedestal more than a part of the urban continuum.

Speaking of urban continuity... I was also thinking about Paris' Forum des Halles: a 63,000 m² project is more about urbanism than about architecture, and you want to make sure that city respiration is improved by it, not cut. Here, to me, the risk was limited to the big question mark, and more precisely the question-mark-shaped main structure: won't this long, intimidating wall with few openings block the view at street level, preventing a dialog with half the neighborhood?

The big question mark: will the DDP successfully dialog with its surroundings?

This is certainly not Les Halles and East 1er Arrondissement, and the situation can only improve from the car-centric mess I've always known, even when street vendors occupied much of the streets. The new complex is overwhelmingly low-rise and car-free and that's a very good thing, even if the promenade to the East - elegantly sloped - could be lined up with more trees or natural protections from the killer waves of Seoul's summer heats and winter winds.

The western front (Art Hall, Museum) looks a bit overwhelming from across the street: you can't see beyond the giant wave except at the central opening, and you can't see the underground spaces that make the structure much lighter and open.

Pedestrian flows do look more fluid from this angle.

At night, the LED enabled facets amp up the feeling that a giant alien squid has just landed in the middle of the city (to make for the one missing in the awful movie version of Watchmen?):

The giant ojingeo by night,flashing its colorful lights.

One part of the DDP has dramatically changed since the early stages: its logo, now a much more digestible evocation of the project (exhibit B) than the initial Keith-Haringesque erection (exhibitionist A):

DDP logo 2007

DDP logo 2013

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So, how was it inside?

If we only went through a few empty halls and staircases (the stairs being the only square angles, even the cases are round), we already enjoyed an impressive display of architecture, and that's pretty much what I felt when I first visited the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, back in 1998: from the inside as well as from the outside, the impression of browsing a 3D Pritzker laureate brochure. Perfect, aseptic aesthetics. A finite, computer-generated world where every single atom is edited:



Somehow, I felt at the same time drawn further inside, and kept outside. A foreign contaminant tolerated behind the pod bay doors, fearing the moment when the suave voice of HAL9000 would resonate: "I'm sorry Steve, I'm afraid I can't do that".

Visiting #ZahaHadid's Dongdaemun Design Plaza (#Seoul DDP), but where is #HAL9000?
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/415024439491719168

If the purpose is to showcase the power of sheer design, I guess this does the trick.

Humans shall eventually find ways of fitting in.

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See all posts related to Seoul DDP, including:

• "Here comes the sun" (September 2012) - on Seoul's green rooftops, including the DDP's.
• "Dongdaemun History Culture Park" (November 2009) - station rebranding
• "Buldozing Seoul, again - Dongdaemun Design Plaza, New City Hall" (September 2008) - on the DDP's planned obsolescence.

Seoul Village 2014
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* Global Seoul Mates, and comedian KIM Young-chul / KIM Yeong-cheol - a great, eventful day along Seoul Fortress, ending with a dinner at Seokparang with the Mayor who will eventually deliver the DDP, PARK Won-soon:

** see for instance "Seoul Old Towns or New Human Towns? New City Hall or Tsunamheat Wave?", following "Seoul Tsunami City Hall, The Other Korean Wave"
*** which, again, I was not too sad to see removed. The sad part was how Cheonggyecheon and Dongdaemun merchants were treated by Mayor LEE Myung-bak (from Cheonggyecheon to Pungmul Market), and his successor (from the old soccer stadium to the Seoul Folk Flea Market in Sinseol-dong).

Dongdaemun History Culture Park

Dongdaemun History Culture Park was inaugurated last week (on October 27), exposing as planned old walls revealed after the removal of Dongdaemun Stadium (see "Buldozing Seoul again...").

Yesterday, the stadium's second death was voted : Dongdaemun Stadium Station (동대문운동장역) shall be rebranded Dondgaemun History Culture Park Station (동대문역사문화공원역).

I'm glad we're spared "Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park Station", or "Dongdaemun Design Plaza Station" (or for that matter, any "Plaza"). Insisting on "History and culture" and "park" in this very area is a sound and future-proof choice : the "design" label tends to become obsolete as soon as you apply it, and this could almost depreciate the whole area at the same level as say Doota instead of lifting it up. BTW : the DDP itself is supposed to be inaugurated in 2011, one year after the celebrations of Seoul as the World capital of design.

Another subway station is about to alter its name in Dongdaemun-gu : "University of Seoul" (UOS or "Silibdae", not to be confused with Seoul National University : SNU lies in Gwanak-gu) will be added after "Cheongnyangni Station". It makes sense since that's the closest station to the University, but a future light subway line connecting Cheongnyangni with Sinnae-dong (Jungnang-gu) was supposed to have a stop at the entrance of the University in Jeonnong-dong.

Seoul Village 2009

Gocheok-dong baseball stadium will be domed

In the focus on future Dongdaemun Design Plaza, I mentioned the destination for the replacement of the old baseball stadium : Gocheok-dong in Guro-gu.

Seoul just announced that it eventually will seat 22,000 under a dome covering all the stadium, thus delaying the delivery from September 2010 to September 2011 (see "Korea to Get First Domed Ballpark" - Chosun Ilbo 20090814). A 2 mn promotional video can be viewed on Guro TV (gbsi.guro.go.kr).

Not a giant by all standards, but an interesting infrastructure for indoor entertainment in a rather forsaken "gu", and a major landmark between two outdoor entertainment areas, Anyangcheon and Hangang riversides (ferry connections announced by 2012).

SM2009

Buldozing Seoul, again - Dongdaemun Design Plaza, New City Hall

Dongdaemun Stadium is about to become a vast plain from which shall emerge Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in 2010. To compensate for the "loss", a new baseball field will be arranged in Gocheok-dong, Guro-gu, where entertainment infrastructures are more needed.

It had been a long time since big games were played in Dongdaemun Stadium : the 1988 Olympic Games and Chamsil changed everything. I did watch a few amateur games there, before the place turned into an even more amateur "flea market", and ultimately a parking lot. The atmosphere around the stadium was much more entertaining. In the early nineties, that's where you would find technical sport products. Counterfeit goods too, like in Itaewon... but change has come to Korea : now all major brands have their own genuine shops in both locations. I've always found the old blue-greenish concrete stadiums disgraceful, but what I enjoyed was the colorful souk of buzzing food stands, before heading for the real flea markets and antique shops. Like it or not, this place had a soul of its own.

Then came Doota & co. Younger generations rediscovered Dongdaemun area, and the Cheongyecheon project cleaned much of the mess nearby. The green giant remained as an embarrassing dinosaur miraculously forsaken by evolution.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) may well become the next generation embarrassing green dinosaur. I like the idea of bringing disruption, and there is an interesting organic touch to the main building... but instead of environmental friendliness, it evokes (judging by the models at least) a plastic toy or one of the countless attractions recently built in minor league cities pretending to play in major leagues. To me, the gizmo already looks obsolete. I hope I'm wrong, because DDP is one of the star of Seoul celebrations as World Design Capital 2010.

City Hall could be a better bet for OH Se-hoon. That working site is very advanced, but it seems that the final design is not decided yet. If they pick a good jazzman as the top architect, improvisation could result in something really innovative. Anyway, Seoul deserves a good symbol for its design drive.

Because beyond 2010, DDP must serve as a design center, a cultural center, a mall, and a park in an area that badly needed green spaces. Furthermore, it will reconnect the urban landscape over and underground. The future with the present (Doota tower area), but also with the past : a portion of Seoul Seongwak walls, destroyed by the Japanese occupants to give place to the stadium, will be restored in the middle of the park, and along with it the perspective towards the Naksan section via Heunginjimun.

Heunginjimun is the name of Dongdaemun itself : the old Eastern gate, nowadays drowned under intense traffic, will at last resurrect, and even be awarded a decent park. Passers-by shall reconquer some of the space colonized by automobiles, and tourists admire this elegant old timer from a closer range. The tragic fate of Sungnyemun / Namdaemun* certainly cast a new light on this beautiful yet forsaken cultural asset.

To me, this is the actual new DDP landmark.

Seoul Village 2008

* see "Namdaemunium"