Abstract
Ttukdo Water Purification Plant, built in 1908, is the first modern waterworks facility in Seoul and the first waterworks industrial heritage in Korea. Modern waterworks were established in order to resolve insanitary conditions of the city as a part of modernization projects; however, it had been developed with discrimination and colonial domination under Japanese occupation. This paper investigates how Ttukdo Water Purification Plant, a product of colonial modernity, became the representative modern waterworks heritage in both aspects of a colonial and civil engineering heritage. Based on archival research, this study analyzes the transformation process of Ttukdo Water Purification Plant, and the changing meaning and value with the historical background. As a result, Ttukdo Water Purification Plant has been characterized by the universal features of water industry heritage, continuity as a facility to produce clean water, and symbolic meaning as the guardian of urban sanitation. On the other hand, Ttukdo plant is regarded as a monument which was conceived under complicated historical conditions—at the confluence of modernization, colonial rule, and emergent urban needs.
Highlights
Industrial heritage is presently regarded as a positive resource for economic and social development in areas that have been affected by deindustrialization
Through the twentieth century and into the first decades of the twenty-first, the meaning and value of the Ttukdo Water Purification Plant has changed over time against a wider historical backdrop in which waterworks were first regarded as guardians of urban sanitation and redefined as symbols of urban colonial modernity
The water purification plant of the Seoul waterworks was installed at Ttukdo Island, which is located on the upper stream of the Han River, on the eastern outskirts of Seoul (See Figure 2)
Summary
Industrial heritage is presently regarded as a positive resource for economic and social development in areas that have been affected by deindustrialization. This paper examines the Ttukdo (Seoul) Water Purification Plant, the first waterworks industrial heritage site in South Korea, as a colonial and civil engineering heritage site through its transformation process. Through the twentieth century and into the first decades of the twenty-first, the meaning and value of the Ttukdo Water Purification Plant has changed over time against a wider historical backdrop in which waterworks were first regarded as guardians of urban sanitation and redefined as symbols of urban colonial modernity. Yeonkyung Lee focused on the private water supply facilities of colonial Japanese settlements in Seoul [13] These precedent studies deal with how Korean waterworks were formed and managed by colonizers in the first half of the twentieth century using a historical and sociological perspective. Newspaper articles and museum display explanations were analyzed to assess people’s perceptions of modern waterworks systems and facilities
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