Abstract
As cities become increasingly de-industrialized and emphasize building a sustainable future, we have seen an increase in the design of large-scale landscapes being incorporated into the urban fabric. The reconstruction of the Cheonggyecheon stream and park in Seoul, South Korea, is an example of this phenomenon. Since its completion in 2005, the city of Seoul has promoted the project as a restoration of its history and recreation of a collective memory of the site and historic stream from its geographic origins. However, this narrative of historic rebirth of a stream raises questions of authenticity, the selective emphasis of one history over another, and how this transformation of Seoul’s built environment may change the identity of the city’s culture and society. Using a mixture of direct observations of the park design, activities, and events held at the site, and interviews with project designers and former Seoul Metropolitan Government staff who worked on the project and Cheonggyecheon park visitors, this research examines the reconstruction of the Cheonggyecheon as simultaneously a recovery of and break with the past, and the representation of Seoul’s history, memory, and culture as performative functions of the design of the landscape and its activities. In the process, this new landscape offers a rewriting of the past and memory of the city as it redefines the identity of the city for its present and future.
Highlights
The completion of the reconstruction of the Cheonggyecheon stream and park in Seoul, South Korea in 2005 was hailed by Lee Myung-bak, who was mayor of Seoul, as the city’s return to what “Mother Nature intended it to be” (Kirk 2003)
Using a mixture of direct observations of the park design, activities, and events held at the site, and interviews with project designers and former Seoul Metropolitan Government staff who worked on the project and Cheonggyecheon park visitors, this research examines the reconstruction of the Cheonggyecheon as simultaneously a recovery of and break with the past, and the representation of Seoul’s history, memory, and culture as performative functions of the design of the landscape and its activities
The plaza was designed by the Korean-American landscape architect Mikyoung Kim, while the first section of the park was designed by South Korean landscape architecture firm SeoAhn Total Landscape
Summary
The completion of the reconstruction of the Cheonggyecheon stream and park in Seoul, South Korea in 2005 was hailed by Lee Myung-bak, who was mayor of Seoul, as the city’s return to what “Mother Nature intended it to be” (Kirk 2003). The second is the suggestion that the intervening years of the site serving as a road and highway overpass were either contradictory to nature or were misguided interventions of city officials in building a road and highway and burying the stream during the country’s rapid modernization period (Lee 2011). These assertions illustrate the promotion of the reconstruction project as a symbol of the post-modern identity of Seoul as a city that blends the urban landscape with natural forms and forces. With the transformation of an area that had been dominated by vehicular traffic into one with a Humanities 2020, 9, 113; doi:10.3390/h9030113 www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities of 23
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