How Magok development changed southwestern Seoul's historical landscape

When I first moved to southwestern Seoul, near Gimpo International Airport, in 2003, the nearby Magok area was a large expanse of fields where rice and vegetables grew and egrets and weasels roamed. It was surrounded on many sides by apartment complexes that were built in the early 1990s, a time when much of Gangseo District was urbanized.

Hints of the urban development to come were on the horizon, however. A long, deep gash in Magok’s fields marked where Seoul Metro Line 9 was under construction, and soon after it was covered over, another flurry of construction activity took place as ground broke on the Airport Express (AREX) line.

The two lines came together at Magongnaru Station, though for years, the only evidence of its existence was a single, sealed-off subway exit in the middle of the fields. Despite its forlorn appearance in those days, these subway lines with their express trains proved to be something of a game-changer for Gangseo District, much of which had been previously ill-served by the subway system.

In 2008, the last large-scale rice harvests in Magok took place and demolition of older villages along its edges began the next year. In 2010, a lake appeared in the center of the area, but it was not constructed through excavation. Instead, since the farmland sat well below the streets that surrounded the area, lines of dump trucks and bulldozers went to work and, within a few months, raised the land around the lake by 2 meters.

In late 2018, after years of construction which saw neighboring sections of the Magok development fill with apartment complexes, the lake — which had been dramatically reduced in size — became accessible to the public as the surrounding Seoul Botanic Park opened. Standing in contrast to the sterile futuristic new city surrounding it, the park changed the urban texture of the area and drew in many visitors.

The changes to the neighborhood did not just affect its future, however — they also changed the way its past was presented.

While the area has an interesting history, for years there were few places one could go to learn about it. Northeast of Magok is Yangcheon Hyanggo, a Confucian shrine established in 1411 that stands as the only reminder that the area was once the seat of Yangcheon Prefecture’s government. For years, its doors were rarely open. Jeong Seon, one of the best painters of the 1392-1910 Joseon era, served as magistrate there in the 1740s and painted the surrounding landscape, but when the art museum named for him opened near the shrine in 2009, it did so with little fanfare.

As apartment construction in the area expanded eastward in the 1990s, Guam Park, named after Heo Jun, a well-known doctor of the Joseon era, was built near his birthplace, and in 2005, a nearby museum dedicated to him opened, but it was off the beaten path and not well known. Today, the sidewalks near Line 9’s Gayang Station advertise the Heo Jun Theme Street and point the way to the museum.

As projects around the botanical garden in Magok have been completed and construction walls have come down, local authorities have clearly decided to link the park with the historical sites nearby, some of which are quite new.

In 2018, an underground exhibition hall opened nearby to highlight a recently discovered Pacific War-era Japanese-built tunnel, while in 2020, a nearby park was refurbished to highlight the local birth of Kim Do-yeon, a professor and post-liberation politician who as a student in Tokyo had signed an early version of the Korean Declaration of Independence on Feb. 8, 1919.

Other monuments in the renamed February 8 Park highlight forgotten history, including a 1965 ceremony held to encourage local farmers and attended by President Park Chung-hee and U.S. Ambassador Winthrop Brown, and another commemorating five family members who joined a righteous army and died fighting on Ganghwa Island during the Manchu Invasion of 1636.

In late 2021, the street from the botanical garden to the Confucian shrine, which passes the February 8 Park, Jeong Seon Art Museum and the uncovered tunnel, was decorated with new signs and maps and renamed Gangseo History and Culture Street.

These new museums, monuments and signs have created a new relationship between the newly developed Magok area and the history of the surrounding neighborhood as they integrate local history with the natural beauty of the botanical garden and lake park. In this sense, they parallel the transportation infrastructure of Line 9 and AREX beneath Magok.

Much as the transportation infrastructure beneath Magok has integrated what was once a far-flung part of the city into Seoul’s urban fabric, these museums, monuments and signs have created a new relationship between the recently developed Magok area and the history of the surrounding neighborhood, reshaping how the history of the wider area is presented and encountered.

These places will be visited, and many more stories about the area’s history and development will be shared, during an excursion by Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea on Saturday, Sept. 19. Participation costs 30,000 won, or 25,000 won for RAS Korea members. Visit raskb.com for more information.

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."