Goodbye, Insa-dong?

By Andrew Salmon

In October, one of Seoul's most beloved districts faces the bulldozers.

Every resident of this relentlessly modern capital knows "Out with the old, in with the new" is a core philosophy at Seoul City Hall. Even so, I was staggered to read, in emails circulating among expatriate and Korean Studies communities, that the city has green-lighted the "redevelopment" of Insa-dong.

For decades, this urban village of souvenir shops, arts ‘n crafts purveyors and traditional restaurants was the city's most famed tourist district. Its narrow, atmospheric side alleys grant visitors a whiff of Old Seoul, while its hanok (traditional Korean cottages) impart a quaint, romantic ambience.

Yet following a February fire in the district, City Hall is, according to reports, planning to widen streets to permit access to fire engines (!) and raise current limits on buildings to double their present heights.

Good God. Why does City Hall not solve this problem by simply issuing its firefighters with longer hoses? It is almost certain that the reported program will massively impact Insa-dong, for terms like "redevelopment" and "renovation" are, in the context of official initiatives, frequently euphemisms for outright destruction, or at best, ersatz reconstruction.

I hope I'm wrong; I hope this process won't bleed the ambience out of Insa-dong's alleyways, overshadow it with crass commercial buildings and demolish its hanok. Perhaps there will be some sensitivity when it comes to "redeveloping" a traditional district. Perhaps Seoul civil servants ― and Korean bureaucrats are masterly regulators ― will strictly oversee this process to safeguard Insa-dong.

Alas, on past form, optimism is unwarranted:

In Bukchon, Seoul's prime zone of "traditional" housing, countless hanok have been "renovated" (i.e. flattened and rebuilt) to the point where this area's architectural authenticity is downright questionable: The 1990s concrete apartment I live in is older than many Bukchon hanok.

Moreover, most are empty: Residents were forced out by rising rents accompanying Bukchon's gentrification, so they sold their hanok to rich persons who maintain them as vanity projects. Result? This "traditional residential neighborhood "is barely traditional and is dying as a residential neighborhood.

Or take Pimatgol, the idiosyncratic little alleyway jammed with tiny restaurants. Admittedly, Pimatgol was dark and gritty, but it was one of the last of those back streets that once made up so much of Seoul and was the kind of alley that could only exist in Korea; it oozed authenticity and character. That did not prevent office developments in 2009 from eradicating it forever.

More?

A few years ago, Samcheong-dong was a quiet, low-rise district of small independent shops, restaurants and cafes, many in converted hanok. Today, most hanok have been renovated beyond recognition, the neighborhood has been colonized by big, brand-name stores and a concrete monstrosity has sprouted in Samcheong-dong's center, overwhelming the district. (Inevitably, its anchor tenant is a coffee shop.) Consequently, much charm has evaporated.

Trendy Garosu-gil in Gangnam was never as quaint as Samcheong-dong, but even this district, enlivened by quirky shops, bars and restaurants, is today just another street of branded outlets, undifferentiated from other streets in Seoul (or, indeed, other cities around the region).

Even Seoul's highest-profile heritage sites are "renovated" to the point where they look brand new. Cases in point?

The spiffy front wall of Gyeongbok Palace looks millennial rather than medieval. For good reason: It was "restored" in 2010.

Then there is National Treasure No. 1, Namdaemun Gate. While I cannot fault the restoration of the gate itself following a 2008 arson attack, the relevant authorities could not resist this opportunity to "improve" things. They added a section of wall constructed with bright, new stonework, seriously undermining the gate's aura of dignified antiquity.

Seoul boasts modern apartments, office blocks and shopping centers a-plenty, but offers few pedestrian-friendly districts. It also suffers a dearth of low-rise, human-scale architecture that satisfies urbanites' desire for aesthetic relief. And ― glaringly ― it lacks buildings that are old and distinctively Korean.

Genuine preservation of hanok districts satisfies all the above conditions, yet beyond a handful of expatriates who are passionate about Korean traditional architecture ― former Korea Times columnist Robert Fouser is a distinguished member of this circle ― discussion of preservation seems virtually non-existent among Seoul's chattering classes.

Why? My guess is that since nation-builder Park Chung-hee prioritized development, growth and modernization, Koreans have been subconsciously programmed to focus exclusively on the future.

But now that Korea is one of the richest nations on Earth, I implore Koreans to reboot and cease modernizing/destroying their pre-modern architecture: Today's Seoul can now afford to invest in the preservation of its last, few remaining bastions of tradition.

And this is not just about heritage preservation per se: It is about upgrading urban lifestyle and differentiating Seoul as Korea's first city ― rather than as yet another 21st century Asian capital of capitalism.

Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.