The Republic of Apartments

Even as the "apateu" model is coming to an end (see "Inhuman, all too human Seoul"), Korea remains "The Republic of Apartments" as much as "The Republic of Samsung". But beyond hardware or software, humans always take center stage in Seoul Museum of History's exhibitions, and the original title of this one ("아파트 인생") could be translated as "Apartment life", or maybe even an attenboroughesque "Life in apartments".

"The Republic of Apartments", another great (and moving) @SeoulMuseum show. Gyonam-dong a special guest
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/446085171901521920

*

As is often the case in my favorite Seoul museum, you can enjoy two exhibitions for the price of one (anyway, bonus: the entrance is always free!). And as an appetizer to the main dish, I started with the art gallery curated around a theme that, logically, permeates Korean culture.

Note this installation recounting decades of standardization (what I dubbed "the industrial revolution of housing") by timelapsing apartment maps, sizes and prices:



I browsed so many hundreds of "apateu" brochures and ads that I feel like I recognize them all!

More classic, AHN Sekwon's "Lights of Weolgok-dong" triptych, shot between 2005 and 2007, tells the sad and classic story of a charming Seoul neighborhood replaced by a dull new town scenery (as it happens, probably the Wolgok Samsung Raemian or the Wolgok Doosan We've):

Weolgok-dong series by AHN Sekwon (2005-2007)

Come to think of it, Hawolgok-dong is very close to Jongam-dong, also in Seongbuk-gu, where the first apartment blocks were erected in 1958 (Jongam Apartment)*.

*

Which leads us to the main show, a retrospective on the apartment phenomenon focusing on socio-cultural dimensions. Like often here (e.g. Jongno, Gwanghwamun, "Made in Changsin-dong" expos), it features a real interior that was still inhabited a few months earlier. The pensioner who lived in this one had to move because of the redevelopment:

At least, this time, the victim sacrificed on the altar of this urban nonsense was an "apateu" block, not an architectural wonder.

As expected, a lot of tributes were paid to one of the latest victims of Seoul's caricature of urbanism: Gyonam-dong lies (lied) just hectometers away, on the other side of Gyeonghuigung and the fortress walls. There's even a picture of our "Samdong Samgeori"! (by the way, I was very pleased to learn the other day from Robert J. Fouser that this amazing curved-roofed hanok has been, after all, protected and saved for good). 

Scenes of devastation and gutted hanok are nothing new, as this 1966 bird's eye view of demolished shacks in Inhyeon-dong reminds us.

And a whole section is devoted to the people displaced by evictions, including naturally the familiar images of Kim Dong-won's cult documentary "Sanggye-dong Olympic".

But as always, you're not in for a pure tearjerker. First, there's a lot of hope, love, and happiness - it's about humanity and humanness, life spaces rich in personal histories, with fair testimonies from ordinary citizens and middle class Seoulites. Second, the aim is to share with the visitors the experiences of insiders, help them understand the context and accept all sides of the past, reconciling citizens with their city and history.

*

• "The Republic of Apartments" (March 6 - May 6)
  Seoul Museum of History (museum.seoul.kr) - 55 Saemunan-ro (Sinmunno 2-ga), Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-062
  See also "Wandering Art" expo at the SMH (March 11-30)
• See all posts related to the SMH, and among other exhibitions:
• "A thousand villages, a thousand memories - Seoul Photo Festival 2012"
• "Jongno Elegy"
• "A Retrospective : Kim Ki-chan and the World of Alleys"
•  See all posts related to urbanism.

*

Seoul Village 2014
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

* special mention to Haengchon Apartment (1969)!

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"In the good old days, before the skirts of Joseon were defiled by contact with the outer world and before the bird-twittering voice of the foreigner was heard in the land"... these lines were not written in pre-Twitter-IPO 2013, but in pre-Japanese-Occupation 1903-1905.

The author? Homer Bezaleel Hulbert, a Missionary from Vermont who defended the cause of Korea and Emperor Gojong against Japanese colonialism, and a man with a weakness for ghost stories. A weakness he shared with his friend James Scarth Gale, a Missionary from Ontario who (on his Dr Jekyll side?) translated the Bible into Korean; the pair collected gems from a genre long considered as taboo in Korea, Gale publishing his own "Korean folk tales" in 1913.

100 years later, another man of faith / champion of Korean culture / Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch leader decided to compile a selection of their stories. If this time, Brother Anthony of Taize doesn't have to do by himself the translation from old or modern texts to help us fathom a side of the Korean psyche, he does mark an important chapter in the encounter of Korean culture through foreign eyes.

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"Eerie Tales from Old Korea" are a fun read. You'll meet spirits, ghosts, monsters, living dead, or shapeshifting beauties, but also - and above all else - humans with weak spots. No wonder these tales were not politically correct in Confucian, Joseon times: heroes can be shamelessly cunning and greedy, and references to Shamanism and Buddhism abound. Hell (!): even today, many Koreans refuse to recognize the existence of monsters in the closet of their national culture. Besides, the authors are having fun themselves: you're not reading academic translations of Yangban materials, but listening to good friends telling folk tales by the fireplace. And to ease your immersion into Korea's popular culture, Hulbert and Gale don't hesitate and summon when needed references to its Western counterparts.

Granted: the original tales were less fundamental for Korea than - say - "The Canterbury Tales" for England (before becoming the Korean citizen known as An Sonjae, Brother Anthony from Cornwall studied Geoffrey Chaucer up close), and literary-wise as well as plot-wise, this ain't no Nobel material, but that's what folk tales are all about, and if you've read such stories as the "Tale of Hong Gildong", you're used to the local dei ex machina. So just hop in, enjoy, and jog along in rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm and Hong Gildong: on November 30, Charles Montgomery will be 'moderating' (figure of speech - remember "Korean Literature Rocks"? ^^) the 10 Magazine Book Club featuring Brother Anthony. To join the event: facebook.com/events/640704215939993.

Brother Anthony of Taize, a.k.a. AN Sonjae: A Theologian? A Teaologist? A Taleologist? All of the above!

And speaking of RAS KB: on November 12, Robert J. Fouser will talk about - among others - Homer B. Hulbert and James S. Gale in his lecture "Early Western Learners of Korean: What Can They Teach Us?". 




"Eerie Tales from Old Korea"
Compiled by Brother Anthony of Taize
Seoul Selection 2013 - 176 pages
ASIN B00D71FV9Y
Paperback & Kindle Editions

Brother Anthony's website: hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony

Seoul Village 2013
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

Am I My Hanok's Keeper? Peter E. Bartholomew's Defense and Illustration of Korean Architecture

Like many Westerners appalled by the hanok genocide in Korea, I'm often playing God blaming Cain ("Where's your hanok?" - "I don't know, am I my hanok's keeper?" - "What have you done? Listen! Your cultural heritage’s blood cries out to your lineage from the ground"). Of course, this gallic brat cockily ranting around is not only useless but undermining the cause.

Hopefully, the cause of hanok preservation did progress dramatically, thanks to voices that carried much more than sterile criticism: true love for Korean architecture only actual hanok's keepers could manifest. And "The Guardian of The Hanok" managed to bring change because he could reach both Korean authorities and the general public.

Last Tuesday, Peter E. Bartholomew faced a large and already won-over audience for his lecture organized by the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch: "Catastrophic Losses of Korea's Architectural Heritage from 1910 and Continuing Today". He could have continued for days and much more this vibrant defense and illustration of Korean architecture.



Peter E. Bartholomew, a.k.a. The Guardian of Hanok


The "Guardian of the Hanok" started his love affair with Korea's traditional architecture in 1968, when he arrived from the States in Gangneung, Gangwon-do. For five years, Bartholomew stayed in Seongyojang, an amazing three-century-old residence which, still today, belongs to a former royal family. Emerging from a sea of lotus, here's the pavillion where a younger (and, judging by his own pictures, a hairier) Peter had his first experience of hanok restoration:

 

Bartholomew illustrated his exciting presentation of the science, aesthetics, philosophy, and poetry of hanok with hundreds of pictures covering all periods, styles, and regions, including from his own hanok in Dongsomun-dong, Seongbuk-gu, where he's been living for more than 30 years.

I will simply add this spectacular view over Ikseon-dong, Jongno-gu for three reasons:




- First, it shows a key yet little known element of hanok architecture mentioned by Peter: the reddish layer of dense clay under the roof tiles, which are here about to be rearranged.
- Second, that's the opportunity to say hello to Robert J. Fouser: another great hanok keeper (just finishing his lovely home in Seochon), Robert recently wrote about this most charming but endangered neighborhood in Seoul Magazine (see "Seoul's Hanok Island: Unhyeongung Royal Residence and Ikseon-dong" and Robert Koehler's photographs)
- Third, it exposes at the same time the beauty, the strength, and the fragility of Korean architecture, as it is in the nude. Note the tile 'backbones' marking the roof lines, and the roof at the lower corner of the picture ("georgeous curves", would probably say "The Guardian of the Hanok").

Peter E. Bartholomew painted an impressive census of the 15 to 20,000 architectural treasures directly controlled by Korean administrations in 1910, from royal palaces to local governments or military compounds. He then told the sad story of annihilation. Not even one percent survived after three man-made tragedies: the Japanese occupation, the Korean war, and of course, the architectural and urban genocide that followed and still today continues.

This story became even more personal for him when he had to lead the resistance against the planned destruction of his neighborhood's last traditional houses. Bartholomew showed us the 2004 official document proving how hanoks were specifically targeted to pave the way for a major development across Dongsomun-dong. The group of hanok keepers managed to save the neighborhood - making many speculators unhappy -, and eventually won in court against the Seoul Metropolitan Government (an episode mentioned in "The Empress's Last Bang").

This decision of justice (and the media coverage it caused) was a defining moment in the fight for preservation: being associated to the destruction of hanok clearly became politically incorrect, and really bad PR at the international level, particularly following the global outcry over the mass destruction of hutongs ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics*. Sign of the times: Seoul mayor named the "Guardian of the Hanok" a honorary citizen the year following the battle in court.

If much pedagogy remains to be done to change mindsets, mainstream media are now more and more often documenting cases, serving the cause, and the perceived value of hanok has clearly evolved, even if that's not always a good thing (see "Stop The Hanok Genocide... And Stop Revival As Reenactment" or more recently "Build a hanok and they will come - Marketing impostures and genuine slow urbanism"). Maybe recurrent programs could help: in France, for instance, such TV programs as "Chefs d'oeuvres en peril" (1960s) or "La France defiguree" (1970s) helped raised public awareness. Preservation movements gained momentum, architectural treasures got saved, and ultimately more sustainable policies emerged.

Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration (cha.go.kr) and other organizations are already doing a lot for the architectural heritage, but there's an emergency to save treasures that are neither in protected areas nor under the spotlights.

Seoul Village 2013
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

* NB: I'm pretty sure similar architectural tragedies are happening across Asia. Keepers of the world, unite?

---
ADDENDUM 20130331 - RASKB video of the conference: