Gwanghwamun Plaza Blues

By Cho Jae-hyon
People Team Editor

Gwanghwamun Plaza sits in the wrong place. In the middle of roads with heavy traffic, it looks awkward and hazardous.

What is a plaza? It's supposed to be an open urban public space. It should be spacious and a center of community life. What makes a plaza attractive is not what's on it but what's around it. Plazas should be empty and blank spaces where people fill the void the way they like. Absent in this plaza is leisurely space.

Seoul City, obsessed with performing cosmetic surgery on the capital, has been busy demolishing old back alleys and residential areas to make way for new buildings and apartments.

To build the plaza, it spent nearly 50 billion won ($42 million). It will have to spend a lot more for maintenance and upgrades in the future as it has stuffed it with various installments. It is crowded with too many things that do not go well with each other. It is spending good money on a silly project.

Believe it or not, Seoul City claims it planted 224,537 flowers on the "flower carpet" it rolled out on the plaza. The flowers represent the number of days passed between the inaugural date of Seoul as the Choseon Kingdom's capital on 0ct. 28, 1394, and Aug. 1, 2009, when the plaza was opened to the public.

There's no way to verify this as nobody would have counted them. The pricey carpet is occupying the largest part of the plaza, becoming an off-limits zone.

Most other installments there look like pieces yet to be fit into a jigsaw puzzle.

To attract public attention to Haechi, the imaginary lion-like creature designated as a symbol of the capital, Seoul City has positioned dozens of colorful Haechi statues around the area.

However, these are nothing more than eyesores, making the plaza look like a third-rate amusement park.

Old things standing in the way of redevelopment are to be sacrificed. For the construction of the plaza, gingko trees that stood there for nearly 100 years were rooted out and transplanted to other places.

What about the hundreds of marble stones surrounding the plaza? Criticized by the media for the lack of safety buffers to protect visitors from vehicles running beside the plaza, the city abruptly enclosed it with the stones. It's funny to surround a plaza with stone bumpers.

More controversial is the 6.2-meter-tall statue of Sejong the Great, the inventor of hangeul and one of the most respected kings of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), which was set up behind the statue of Admiral Yi Soon-shin.

Before the construction of the plaza, Sejong Street provided a far better view toward Gwanghwamun, the main gate of Gyeongbok Palace, against the backdrop of Mt. Bugak and the blue sky.

Apart from the obstructed view and the budget already spent on the plaza, other costs Seoulites will have to pay are significant.

What's the plaza for? To provide a resting place for office workers at nearby buildings? To provide a playground for children? To educate Seoulites about the history of the 600-year-old city or to impress foreign tourists?

It's serving none of these purposes properly. It's just the expansion of a median strip that separates opposing lanes of traffic.

The reduced lanes are causing traffic jams around the area. The time and energy drivers are losing on the road is enormous.

This sort of top-down, bureaucratic and authoritarian project, launched without sufficient debate and study, is exacerbating the traffic and living conditions in Seoul.

It's regrettable to see this urbanization scheme bulldozing even cultural assets such as "pimatgol," the narrow alleyways beside Sejong Street that had been flanked by numerous cozy restaurants and bars.

But those alleyways will now reside only in our memories. Pimatgol was one of the true symbols of Seoul, reflecting the history, culture and stories of ordinary people. Sadly, it's now all gone. New buildings will never replace its beauty.

Construction work is under way in every corner of Seoul. District offices are replacing pavement too often, an attempt to spend the allotted budget within a given time to get a bigger budget next year.

Mayor Oh Se-hoon, preparing for an election next June for a second term, is making headlines almost every day with grandiose projects to upgrade the exterior appearance of the city with various design and public works.

Oh must be pleased with the large number of visitors to the plaza. But the number is insignificant as it does not necessarily mean they appreciate it.

Standing behind the statue of Sejong the Great is Cheong Wa Dae. And lurking behind the Sejong statue may be Oh's ambition to be the owner of the presidential house. Whether the plaza will be a red carpet to the throne or a mishap remains to be seen.

chojh@koreatimes.co.kr

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