Rooftopping - a way of interacting with city

Lotte Tower climb impressive but careless, say local rooftoppers

By Jon Dunbar

After Ukrainian daredevil Vitaliy Raskalov revealed to the world pictures covertly taken from atop the 555-meter Lotte World Tower in Seoul last Sunday, locally based photographers, rooftoppers and urban explorers have been supportive but apprehensive.

“What else can I say except that it’s cool, thrilling and I wish I was with them,” said Romain, a French expat, who compared the feat to Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the Twin Towers. “They are doing dangerous stuff but they are a metaphor of freedom for me.”

Another Korean rooftopper, only identified as Kelly, said, “I think it is cool that they came to Korea and challenged Lotte Tower.”

Other rooftoppers expressed their own interest in the tower.

“I doubt many residents of Seoul haven't wanted to climb the tower,” said Peter Smith, a foreign resident. “In this particular case, I'd only been looking into legitimate ways of being invited up.”

He said rooftopping is a way of interacting with your city. “I wouldn't call myself a daredevil at all, rather someone with the curiosity of a cat.”

A Korean citizen using the alias Taichi Murakami said, “Actually, I was working on getting up there but they did it first. Because I’m local I needed more precautions to protect my identity. But I'm happy with their work.”

Although the hobby is popular in most developed countries, including Korea's neighbors China, Russia and Japan, it is still unheard of here, with only a few dozen practitioners taking advantage of Seoul's many accessible roofs.

“Somehow, Koreans don't go to rooftops,” said Kelly, who prefers public-access roofs. “If they go, usually it is only for smoking.”

Overall, they were concerned about the negative public reactions to Raskalov’s Instagram announcement.

“I find the whole public reaction to high-profile rooftoppers rather interesting,” said Smith. “The reaction here in Korea has had this particularly baffling focus on danger.”

Kelly said Koreans have this weird worry about how foreigners would think about Korea.

“I think they were afraid if something bad happened to Raskalov and his partner-in-crime Vadim Makhorov, the international press would blame Korea for lacking safety,” Kelly said.

Like Kelly, the others were mostly dismissive of worries about the safety of the rooftoppers.

“Whilst the dangers on a rooftop or crane are real, they're often overstated,” said Smith. “It falls somewhere around the low-risk, high-consequence end of the scale.”

Most rooftoppers said they are well aware of the risk and they are trained and experienced to cope with any perils.

Rather, more concern was raised over the increased attention, as discretion is key to this hobby, which often skirts the law.

“I'm a rooftopper _ but I don't do unnecessary risks that can cause an adverse effect for the rest of us photographers, such as increased security and making it illegal,” said Noe Alonzo, an American known for his time-lapse videos of Seoul. “Props to them but it's just not worth the risk. They'll probably taint rooftoppers' image.”

Robert Koehler, an American photographer who takes to high ground for shoots, said it was already difficult enough getting access to rooftops for cityscape photography, even through official channels.

“I can't imagine this stunt will make building owners and security guards any more amenable,” he said. “Well, at least we'll always have the mountains to shoot from.”

Raskalov refused to comment, but said a video of the infiltration will be released early in the coming week.