Digging up Insa-dong's future
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By Jon Dunbar
A fire tore through Insa-dong three years ago on Feb. 17, 2013, worrying Koreans and foreigners alike that the beloved neighborhood they know was destroyed.
A few months later, the city lifted a 35-year development ban on the district, partly to grant permission for the streets to be widened and enable access for fire trucks. Once again, everyone lost their minds, fearing this was the end of Insa-dong as we knew it.
The following year, residents of a large corner of the same neighborhood, adjacent to the site of the fire, were unceremoniously evicted and their homes were demolished. And nobody cared. As this wasn't the corner of Insa-dong visited by tourists: it was mostly quaint little bars, saunas, motels and offices huddled together behind the formidable Jongno Tower, its imposing ring-shaped upper level not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien's Eye of Sauron surveying its domain.
Compared to the nearby cobblestoned car-free streets lined with souvenir shops we think of as Insa-dong, this was a humbler, more lived-in side of the same neighborhood without tourist attractions. From a pragmatic perspective, this was inevitable, but we should hope for a new place for the people, businesses and communities of that area to prosper.
They represent the era of Korea's transition from one of the world's poorest countries to one of its wealthiest, which may be why the city is so eager to forget. Likely, even many of the people of this area were themselves ready to move on up, recalling those old flea-trap buildings without nostalgia.
The whole block was fenced off after they were emptied out, but less to prevent trespassers than to shield them from public view. So they were torn down, unobserved except by demolition workers and the unblinking gaze of the Jongno Tower.
Shortly after the buildings were knocked down, a taller white fence adorned with images of Jongno's cultural assets went up around this lot. It seemed that development in this zone was over for now, pending construction of the new building. But something curious happened.
Windows were installed in the fence along the main road, giving citizens a view of the other side, as archaeologists from the Cultural Heritage Administration moved in and did a full survey of the 1.73 acre site. This has become standard procedure in the downtown core, as most modern buildings were constructed atop the ruins of older structures.
They uncovered 37 ancient residential buildings dating back to the Joseon Dynasty, (1392-1910), and online images of the dig went viral around April 2015.
But by the time people were looking at the pictures, the survey was starting to wrap up and removal of the artifacts had begun.
Well, what did you expect? Could the city preserve the ancient relics, maybe even rebuild them? That's certainly worth asking, but should the same then be done for all archaeologically significant sites? There wouldn't be room enough for those of us living today.
The ruins had to make way for a new, bigger structure, just as the 20th century buildings did.
But having seen newly opened high-rises in the area, including the D Tower, Gran Seoul and The-K Twin Towers, I don't think we've seen the last of those Insa-dong ruins. At those three buildings ― and in others ― the ground levels, glass floors have been installed, under which lie excavated relics, preserved just as the archaeologists uncovered them, complete with signs explaining their original purpose and significance. These super-new structures have leapfrogged over the 20th century legacy to look back on the capital's Joseon roots.
It gives the city a sense of timelessness, but these buildings doubtlessly come with an expiration date. Perhaps someday, these new buildings will be blanketed off and torn down. Maybe then, with advanced technology currently beyond our grasp, archaeologists will conjure up a similar view into our modern familiar Insa-dong.
Jon Dunbar is a copy editor of The Korea Times and a resident of Jongno-gu.