Chung Kyung-won, the chief design officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, says design will be the key engine for the drive to make Seoul a global city.
/ Korea Times Photo
by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
For Seoul City, design is leverage not only to upgrade its appearance but also innovate its administration. And Chung Kyung-won, the chief design officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, is the man who is leading the drive to make the capital truly global.
Inaugurated on June 1, Chung is now busy trying to make his mark on the city's cosmetic initiative, dubbed Design Seoul. His resume would appear to suggest he is suitably qualified: He is also a professor in the Department of Industrial Design at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and has participated in Seoul's design affairs as an outside committee member for the last two years.
Design is one of the major projects initiated by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon to make the city a charming global city. It is Chung's job to ensure projects are coordinated effectively.
``Design is a shortcut to become a global city and the mayor knew it,'' he said.
To realize the dream, Oh launched the Design Seoul Headquarters in May 2007. Since then it has been spearheading the capital's facelift, carrying out efforts to remold city scenery and support the design industry.
Chung's predecessor, Kwon Young-Gull, a design professor at Seoul National University, was more focused on public design, and the results were immediately visible to citizens. Since it was a weakness, it was deemed natural to target its improvement as the first goal of Design Seoul.
But according to Chung, design is a consideration of both the human and natural worlds.
``Design is making artifacts more easy and fun for people to use. So good design should be aesthetic, economic and functional.'' he said. His motto is ``pleasure by design,'' and he wants to raise quality of life through this mantra.
``I will balance the development of the design industry and the public design of the city based on the two year's work,'' he added. ``I will show sustainability and consistency to take over the previous projects and foster the design industry to develop various fields of design.''
Achievements of Design Seoul
Design Seoul has four strategies ― airy, integrated, collaborative and sustainable. This approach has been making Seoul more ``soft,'' emphasizing a culture and design that is moving away from the previous ``hard'' development, centered on a paradigm of efficiency.
The efforts appear to be paying off: The Design Seoul Headquarters won the World Design Capital (WDC) 2010 award; established Design Seoul guidelines, the city mascot Haechi and the Seoul colors; and held the Seoul Design Olympiad (SDO).
With 100 staff and an 86.8-billion-won budget, the Design Seoul Headquarters devises policy and sets the framework. The Design Seoul Foundation, a city-sponsored organization, is a think tank for the promotion of design and will operate design-related facilities such as Dongdaemun Design Plaza and the Industrial Design Medical Center.
To prevent possible trial-and-error by city employees not specialized in design, Chung invites outside design experts to various committees to guide and monitor the projects. In fact, Chung himself was an outside advisor before he came to the chief position.
``World Design Capital (WDC) 2010 is an example of Mayor Oh's ambition to become a global city by design," Chung said.
The WDC accolade was something of a coup, with the bi-annual city promotion project acknowledging the merits of urban design and organized by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design in Canada.
A slew of ``Renaissance" projects in Seoul ― the Han River, Mt. Namsan and the city's streets ― are some of the other major tasks confronting Chung.
``While the Han River Renaissance project is praised by foreign cities as a good example of restoring a waterside, the facelift of streets is welcomed by citizens who actually use them every day," he said.
And the design headquarters provides specific guidelines and supervises city work in a bid to maintain identity.
One of the more acute projects involves working on Seoul's symbols. Haechi, an imaginary lion-like animal embedded in the city's rich history and tradition, now adorns the city official's collar in the form of a badge and is carried on local cabs. Even an animated film and documentary featuring Haechi are to be produced.
The symbolic colors of Seoul were selected from representative shades of the city, such as red from dancheong, the coloring of traditional Korean buildings, and white from the Han River.
``To better promote Seoul's colors, we plan to set up a Seoul-colored figure at the Seoul Museum of Art and paint under the Mapo Bridge with the Seoul colors," Chung said. ``We want the symbols to dissolve into citizens' lives."
Two Seoul fonts have also been developed ― Seoul Han River and Seoul Mt. Namsan, representing the two important landmarks. They have been distributed for free for anyone to use.
But as the former president of the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, Chung also cares about factoring the design industry into the equation.
``We can support small- and medium-sized firms which are not capable of developing design by providing know-how and the latest trends," he said.
Seoul will put in about 113 billion won over the next three years to improve the design capabilities of SMEs, as well as their industrial competitiveness. The city has already bought an old hospital building in the Dongdaemun area that will be revamped into the Industrial Design Medical Center, a research and education facility.
``In addition to the design medical center, we will build two smaller design supporting facilities in Mapo and Gangnam," he said. ``A design base camp connecting designers and small businesses will be established near Guro Digital Complex as well."
Design Seoul Is About Citizens
``The most important part of Design Seoul is for citizens to understand and enjoy design," the Chung said. ``For example, some 2 million visited the first SDO last year. We will make design take root in the mind of Seoulites."
To encourage their participation, the city is holding a public design competition named ``Seoul, I Design'' in which citizens can submit any design under the theme of ``Interflow and Consilience."
SDO is another opportunity open to citizens. The Olympiad is a comprehensive design festival and people can visit and experience various design-related events and exhibitions. Each city district is tasked with designing a seating section of the main stadium at Jamsil Sports Complex, which was vacated last year.
``Design Seoul Village" provides guidelines and professional support to local residents to help them design and improve their village independently. The project aims to raise the value of villages through inhabitants.
``The city tries to induce citizen participation and I want the people to suggest what needs to be improved in their environment," Chung said. ``We can raise the quality of the city's design and make the city image better through these citizen efforts."
According to Chung, design can revitalize the city during times of economic difficulty.
``Design is not a luxury. It prospers during financial hardships," he said. ``Design Seoul is going to maximize and make the lives of citizens better because Seoul invested in design during this economic crisis."
Despite the economic downturn, the importance of design is growing. According to research by the Samsung Economic Research Institute, 52 percent of Korean CEOs indicated design was the core of their competitiveness and 51 percent said they would invest more in design.
``The design management I pursue is not different from the Design Seoul concept," Chung said. ``I will upgrade successful public design to make the city more comfortable and pleasant and develop the design industry to create revenue and make it a new growth power."
meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr
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