Firstly, the new sculpture to adorn Cheonggyecheon Plaza has been unveiled.
It certainly leaves one at a loss for words.
Said Yoo In-chon of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture:
“We expect that the sculpture by the famous artist will enhance the international status of Chonggyechon stream and increase the number of foreign visitors to Seoul.”
The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Big Pile of Poo on the Cheonggyeoncheon—absolute must-sees for any global traveler.
And today, the city revealed its plan for a newly designed city hall structure. The new structure, a 19-floor tower, will thankfully incorporate the current City Hall and bring to mind the yin-yang symbol seen on the Korean flag.
The existing City Hall was built in 1923 by our friendly island neighbors across the East Sea. The structure—one of my favorites in the city—supposedly resembles the “hon” character in “Nihon” (the “Ni” character was represented by the old General Government Building, which was demolished during the Kim Young-sam administration). Personally, I could never see the “hon” in the design, but nevertheless, the complex’s Taepyeong Hall will be removed to take care of that problem and restore the Korean spirit in the nation’s capital. Or so they say.
78 Comments
Eww, contemporary art, it’s ugly…one of the oldest saws in journalism. There was some selective quoting going on there, probably mirroring the reporter’s ignorance. People complain about the sameness of the urban landscape, then complain when something is added that challenges the sameness.
Seoul is a stunningly ugly city with row after row of tombstone-style apartments, so it’s comparatively inexpensive to liven the place up with some art. Choi Jeoung-hwa has a funny sculpture of giant vegetables next to Shinsegae, for instance, that people either love or hate, and it adds humor or quirkiness or whatever to an otherwise bland area. (He also did the gold pagoda sculpture next to the Samsung/millenium building on Chongno.)
I reserve judgement until I actually see it but it is pretty suspect when an artist creates a piece of sculpture for public space, yet never actually visits the place. Photos are not the same thing and for 600,000 the guy should come over, in person. This sounds like the artist “phoned in his gig” and ran with the money.
Excellent use of the spare pieces left over from the construction of the Kremlin. Now they can drop lawbreakers from the sky for the ultimate ddongchim.
I was suspecting the same thing but it’s sited really well given Oldenburg’s relative non-involvement. My only criticism is that this piece is not really typical of his output.
So Oldenburg likes the fact that his work is arousing hostility. God forbid that art should be “easy,” i.e. accessible to the poor bastards who have to look at it every day.
LOL “Ryu went on to say that genuine public artwork should be closely related to the environment surrounding the work and it should reflect historical context of the location.” Then I guess there are no genuine artworks in Korea, because all those bronze turds in front of almost every office building here don’t relate to anything. Most people don’t even notice the public artwork here because it’s so innocuous.
montclaire, he welcomed “controversy,” not hostility. It has to be especially difficult for a non-Korean artist to do something here since you’re up against xenophobia and nationalist hysteria in addition to the usual “I hate anything different” mentality.
Does anyone else think this statue is going to be a major pain in the butt to maintain? If not cleaned regularly, a couple of months of rain and smog, and those reds and blues are going to look pretty drab.
I would have preferred a more open structure. A closed, vertical shape is kind of redundant in that location. But I’m sure we’ll all get used to it soon enough.
I am, however, looking forward to the first movie to use it… preferably with a jumped getting impaled on it.
That won’t last. A few trees would have been fine.
> A few trees would have been fine.
But a tree museum would have so much more ironic and Joni Mitchell-riffic.
“Hardandtiny” has a great idea. Either that or a giant penis statue.
Monument to Biggus Dickus (aka “trashy bigmouth foreigner,” huh Pawi?)
Iceberg wins the prize with:
Well, folks ’round these parts are always knocking Koreans for a certain tendency towards preferring indigenous efforts over foreign contributions, so at least we can marvel at the fact that the sculpture was contributed by a famous American artist. But I don’t think Oldenburg’s output is going to do anything to improve Korean-American relations…. Is he on the State Department payroll? Perhaps this is punishment for the Roh government’s pro-Nork policies.
I think a company that produces “vibrators” can sue for copyright infringement.
The artists was “inspired” by a toy his wife uses on a regular bassis.
jeez
the american artist probably mooched it off from some ice cream company
if not
he probably asked around for the most popular doodle by kids and the Koreans showed him the ever popular 똥 doodle.
there
i found the inspiration
http://xeniteia.typepad.com/xe.....index.html
bwahahahaha
Everybody’s a critic. Actually I don’t like that it’s unlike the art this guy’s known for:
http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/lsp.htm
He’s a Pop artist from the ’60s, so he could have done something more vernacular like, maybe, “street pizza” or a broken bottle of soju. Nah. Seriously, I have to admit he might have telephoned this one in, still it’s better than the typical bronze amputated limb or lump of metal that’s in front of most office buildings in Seoul.
The new City Hall seems to have some good ideas. My first thought is to eliminate the old building, maintain the curvature from the intersection/plaza on the proposed new rear lower building, but eliminate the futuristic rooftop and create a smaller twin on the opposite corner to contain those spaces lost by eliminating the older building.
No need to try and convey the curve through the exisiting old wall - remove the building and expose the curve to a larger plaza.
Rough draft of what I’m getting at here……
http://img.photobucket.com/alb.....etwins.jpg
The purtiest fecal swirl ah seen in a loooong time!
I wish the new City Hall looked like the hanja for “Han”.
elgin is so right, any ‘good’ artist researches his (or her) project, and to neglect visiting its final resting space…meh…i wonder if ingest the correct amounts of food coloring if i could produce something of the same quality….
Oh…come on!
It’s not a “big pile of poo”. A butt plug of this size would require multiple enemas. There would be no poo. Maybe stretch marks, but no poo.
Heh.
And all joking aside who would want an Easter colored butt plug in full display?
http://tinyurl.com/jc2yd
I am also not sure, given he was born in Sweden, that I would say he is “of the United States”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Oldenburg
This kind of art may pass in NY or in San Francisco [where I — sometimes regrettably live — but to represent him as American only serves to further hurt the USFK alliance. I know plenty of artists in SF and this ain’t American art. It is Swedish or EU art.
Jason McClain, nice try, lets say we share the blame for this one. I’m Swedish and no offence, but after reading Claes Oldenburg’s bio I’d say the US education he got back in the 50s and 60s would make him more like 99% a US artist, up there with demi-gods like Andy Warhol (also of dubious European origin). So don’t try to get away with this one.
I bet he doesn’t even speak the language of brave Vikings of the icy North.
I suppose the city fathers of Seoul saw the saw (yes, a 46 ft tall saw) that the same artist team got paid to erect in Tokyo, at Odaiba, and decided that “we’ve got to have one, too”. Enjoy.
http://www.kreysler.com/projects/saw/saw.htm
come on, every one likes a “20meter erection”
or is it just KT foreigner bashing again?
Hmmm… New city hall looks a bit like that place next to Namba station in Osaka…
But I’m in support of all of the crack-inspired sculpture they have in this country. Gives me things to take pics of.
That’d be patent infringement… Copyright only applies to the written word — like these ones right here. And I think the patent for the vibrating dildo expired many moons ago, even for red and blue, unicorn-horn-like buttplugs like this. Holy crap, though… if anyone wants to pay me $600k for designing ‘public art’ like this, feel free to contact me. I could use the money, and can almost guarantee that anything I’d come up with at least wouldn’t give you a headache every time you looked at it.
OFF TOPIC:
Robert: The “manage you subscriptions” link returns a 404 error. Both on this page and in the email I am receiving when new comments appear.
Abstract art is a racket. And I say that as someone who appreciates good art, even some 20th-century stuff.
Re: the sculpture: looks like a giant piece of candy.
Abstract art is a racket.
I cant agree more. The only things that should be abstract is philosophy, physics, and mathematics. “Pop art” is disposable, throw-away art. “Abstract art” is just a euphemism for failing to create something that actually matters aesthetically, pretending to be otherwise, whose only achievement is creating a sense of confusion in the mind of the uninformed layperson, which itself is actually just a smokecreen to disguise the fact that the artist is really just full of it.
For anyone who says Koreans have a ’screw loose’… I guess they found it.
Yea right,,, Definitely it would take a while for me to change my first impression of “Spring..”to his concept.
My first impression was just like a Christmas-decoration in front of Lotte Dept at Myungdong.
It would eventually take less time for residents and foreign tourist to understand if Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto’s “Grand Sphere of Seoul, Olympic Culture park”, http://www.venezlon.co.uk/news...../soto5.gif ,been replaced with it.
No wonder, why only 4 percent of 2,194 respondents, in a survey by http://www.nate.com, supported Seoul government’s decision.
A classic example of “Tak-Sang-Haeng-Jung”
Some guy paints a red strip on a blue canvas, gives the painting some high-concept BS name, art critics talk it up to show that they “get it” (I assume they did in this particular example), then museum curators trip over themselves to shell out over a million dollars to show that they “get it,” too. One could have made a housepainter’s day by offering a fraction of that to get the exact same piece of work.
It’s a racket, I tell you!
Here are some more gems from one of the foremost abstract expressionists. I especially like Canto IV. Wonder how much the Tate shelled out for that? I know, I’m an unsophisticated schmuck who just doesn’t get it. Well, if you want modern American work, give me something by Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth.
How about these gems by one of the foremost Abstract Expressionists? I especially like Canto IV…I wonder how much the Tate shelled out for that gem. I know, I’m an unsophisticated schmuck who just doesn’t get it. But for modern American art, I’d take Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth any day.
It’s the same deal (not to mention colour scheme) as that painting “Voice of Fire” that caused such a fuss with the Canadian national art gallery. A strip of blue, strip of red, and another strip of blue. Magnificent!
Within the week, people painted telephone poles, oil drums - you name it - in the same colours.
Art is a form of communication. If the artist can not communicate a thought or feeling through their work then they have failed, in my opinion.
hardyandtiny, that’s an interesting rendering. The building is as much not there as there. (How did you do that so quickly? Are you in architecture?)
Oh my God, LeoStrauss (#16), that was an excellent find! (http://xeniteia.typepad.com/xe...../12/_.html) So Oldenburg did do some research after all….
Hyalucent: yes, I was referring to Voice of Fire. Our tax dollars at work!
Looking back now, I should have known for sure you were making the reference but art has gotten to such an abominally absurd point where you can say something as arbitrary as “A splash of orange on green” and you’re actually referring to a real painting that auctions in six or seven figures, without meaning to reference anything in particular.
One thing: `‘We work on large-scale projects together and get a double billing, but it was Bruggen’s idea to use the shell form and Korean color scheme,’’ Oldenburg said. “She mixed the colors herself.’’
If they were just buying the “artist” and not the art, maybe they could sue to get some of their money back.
I concur with you Sewing on link of #16, Actually it would honestly attract more people, LOL.
“Pop art” is disposable, throw-away art. “Abstract art” is just a euphemism for failing to create something that actually matters aesthetically, pretending to be otherwise,
very nice.
yes, let’s all paint houses with a flower and sun. then everyone can relate. cuz that’s what art is all about, right?
Well, there is lots of deeply meaningful, soul-touching art in the world that far transcends “houses with a flower and sun.” The world would be a far, far worse off place if we didn’t have so many artists churning stuff out, both good and bad. I even appreciate a lot of off-the-wall stuff, like the Fluxus movement.
But exactly why, for example, could Barnett Newman get away with painting this series of paintings, for example, and have it recognized by its becoming part of the permanent collection of one of the world’s foremost galleries for modern art? Is it because of the quality of his previous work? Is it because the “Eighteen Cantos” together form a whole greater than the sum of its parts? If an amateur, hobby painter in his or her spare time came up with the same set of paintings (okay, they’d probably just paint lighthouses, barns, and what not, but whatever), would it not measure up to Newman’s work because, well, the latter is expressing something that we mere mortals cannot grasp? Or is it all simply a racket?
Whoah, this is too existential….
Some qualifications:
Both Voice of Fire and Eighteen Cantos were by Barnett Newman. The latter was a set of lithographs (prints), not paintings. The movement this work represents is Color field painting/lithography/whatever. It’s probably unfair of me to cite this one minority movement as representing much of postwar art, but if Oldenburg phoned it in on this commission in Seoul or at any rate is drawing a large sum of money for such a hideous piece of work on the basis of his reputation—or if merely painting a canvas with one or two flat colours can be considered high art and rationalized as something sophisticated by critics, then well, to quote P. T. Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Sewing, seouliva et al., these kinds of blanket statements denouncing all art made in the last 100 years or so (when artists began making abstract paintings and sculpture) are really amusing. You can’t relate, that’s fine, but millions of other people can. The way you’re all reacting to this really kind of mundane sculpture makes me think it’s a really effective artwork after all
Anyway, the critic Hilton Kramer has been putting down this kind of work for decades, so if you want a more sophisticated slam than “it’s doo-doo” you might read his digs, like “The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation.” And I’d be very interested to hear seouliva’s examples of “something that actually matters aesthetically.”
Hyalucent, all art is always communicating something, even if it’s bullshit. Most people don’t have patience for contemporary art (and a lot of it is yawn-inspiring, true) just like being unable to appreciate jazz or architecture or whatever, but why should the only art be based on figuration, which seems to be what you’re implying? That wouldn’t communicate much except “here’s a tree.”
I like a whole range of art from Oldenburg (who is a dinosaur in art now) to that classic “Dogs Playing Poker”:
http://www.doylenewyork.com/Do...../bluff.jpg
“Voice of Fire” (by Barnett Newman) is now probably worth several times what the museum paid for it, so Canadians got a good return on their tax money.
> Racket
Well, to be fair, most of those abstracts exist within history… There is a reason for them. And often they look a lot more interesting in person, where you can see the painting technique (often far more interesting and subtle than what you can see in a picture, especially an low-res Internet pic).
Sure, there are the Mark Kostabi’s of the world (especially in New York… my old art teacher always said to stay away from New York until you were already established). But there is some great abstract art out there. And for statuary, most of the art is abstract. Just because you never learned how to “read’ it does not mean it is worthless (which is true about pretty much everthing… art, music, traditional culture, poetry, etc.).
Well, I don’t want to be a knuckle-dragging philistine. There is a lot of 20th-century art I appreciate, and much of it quite abstract. (What turned me on to modern art originally was probably an out-of-print book written about 1980 by Rolf Harris (of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Jack” fame), of all people.) This seemed like a fun pile-on, though. I don’t know about the dogs playing poker, however…
…It’s better to have this art and be able to debate its merits, than to live in a time or place where the only acceptable art is, for example, socialist realism or propaganda posters. I agree that every artist and every work fits into place, and has a role to play, and I come from a family of artists, even. And yet, and yet….
Without getting into the personal stuff too much, I obviously have some vested interest in the arts, and I totally understand how the mechanics of the art market, where a scrap of canvas sells for millions, can make people feel like it’s all some kind of scam. I had the same response when salaries in pro baseball shot through the roof, like “no way in hell is that player worth $15 million a year,” but that’s capitalism, not sports, and same goes here. Is this art worth the price? The market decides, and generally modern art has been on the upswing for decades.
Haisan’s right, almost all art that’s interesting is better seen in person. For instance, last year in Amsterdam I went to the Rijksmuseum and saw the Vermeers they have–just amazing, I can’t describe how great it was to just stare at these amazing little paintings.
Vermeer was in a class all his own. Endless experiments with light through a window, and yet each one endlessly fascinating.
I got the same sort of sense when as a teenager, my 9th-grade history class went on a field trip to see an exhibition of Chinese brush paintings in the local art gallery. Living in a city where nothing is more than 100 years old (except for some rocks and trees!), I was staring at paper touched by the brushes of artists a millennium earlier. I was looking at the traces of someone’s hand movements a thousand years previous. It was a truly amazing sensation.
Strange. Something about this thread is killing my Safari browser. No problems in Firefox, though.
sewing wrote:
“But for modern American art, I’d take Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth any day.”
Andrew Wyeth and his family, Yes!!!
Michael: I’m not entirely stuck in figuration or realist mode here. There are ways to express thought without relying on what we see tangibly, however the more abstract we get, the less transference there is. Coming up with my own view on what a piece of art means to me is fine, but then *I’m* doing all the work and the role of artist is transposed on me.
As you say, it’s capitalism. I’m paying for the views of a gifted artist. If I want to create my own artistic interpretations, I’ll sit at home and stare at a blank wall and ponder my own insignificance in the vastness of the infinite white space for free.
For the record, I’m probably only 60% against this piece in question. I think it’s more of a decoration than a piece of art, and I don’t like the sharpness at all. There must be something feng shui-wise wrong about it. We’re dealing with celebrating a canal here — reconstructed, flowing, smooth, bringing peace to the centre of a busy city… this piece of art is so much the opposite, it’s like it’s aggressively trying to destroy everything they want the canal to be. If I was forced to interpret the artist’s meaning, I’d say he’s giving Seoul the artistic equivalent a big middle finger.
so, let’s try and name the fuck_r
let me try
똥 On The 청계천 Headwaters
Hyalucent, if “the more abstract we get, the less transference there is,” despite that, you sure got a big transference from the Oldenburg flipping off Seoul
I think you actually have a sophisticated response to the sculpture, even if you dislike it. My complaint with it is it’s not much like the work Oldenburg’s known for, and I suspect maybe he did phone it in. Also, his wife is color blind if that’s her interpretation of a traditional Korean color scheme. Like if you look here: http://www.seoulsearching.com/culture/clothes.html down the page a bit, the tones are more muted and not primaries.
As for the “stream” (you called it a canal, and you’re more correct as far as that goes) the best thing about it are the art works, regardless of the varying quality. The stream itself is a concrete ditch.
Concrete does not last very long either, unlike the work of their ancestors, which generally lasts much longer. Perhaps it should have been in stone but then that would mean quality, time and more money.
“despite that, you sure got a big transference from the Oldenburg flipping off Seoul”
But that’s just my interpretation. I have no idea if it’s what the artist really wanted to convey (and I doubt it is). No communication. Inspiration maybe… but not communication.
The Cheonggyecheon project was just getting in gear when we left Seoul. I’m glad to hear that it’s becoming a zone favourable to artists though. With luck, we’ll see it first hand some time next year.
(Now the more I look at it I wonder if they didn’t just spray paint and twist together the old guard rails from the highway they tore down.)
In my opinion, the concrete freeway supports that were purposely left to decay at 청계천8가 are a far more moving and artistic statement than this Eurotrash joke sculpture.
Michael (55): Re Hyalucent’s criticism of it, that’s exactly the point. The sculpture doesn’t complement the stream/canal/what have you at all. Everything else along the waterway—the fountains, the landscaping, the bridges, the murals, even the lighting at night—seems to fit together, but this is just so outlandishly…different, and not in a good way. Oldenburg claims that it’s supposed to represent a spring, a source for the water, but I’m not seeing it. I see what he means by that, but it doesn’t work for me at all.
As for a Korean colour scheme, I would have thought of 단청, seeing as this is a structure, rather than textiles. Either way, the colours they actually chose don’t seem to work.
Something more organic and more horizontally oriented (along the axis of the stream) would have worked better, IMHO.
OK, OK, it sucks
Oldenburg should have done something like all his other work, since that would be a much more interesting take on Korea’s materialist culture and the manmade environment–something like his “spoon bridge” would probably satisfy most of you:
http://community.iexplore.com/.....dge420.jpg
Dunno why he decided to go away from his signature style here, it’s his prerogative as an artist, but I suspect not what the people who commissioned him wanted.
I prefer Henry Moore but since he’s dead, I guess they couldn’t commission him.
At least they didn’t choose Jeff Koons, that’s something to be thankful for.
Since I’m coming to Seoul in a couple of days, I’ll probably go have a look.
Even those who are supposed to know about these things get it wrong.
The Royal Academy exhibited just the plinth from a sculpture in the summer exhibition.
The two had got separated and they rated the plinth more interesting than the sculpture itself!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....Matt.jhtml
michael, loved the capitalism remark…the market does dictate… but i still hate this hippy snail. you’re right, it did exactly what art SHOULD do. it got me thinking, and expressing my feelings and thoughts about it (even last night drunkenly, to random strangers haha), so I will continue hating it, and even take a special trip there this week to check it out and fume inside. The artist wins.
I saw this yesterday in Downtown Seoul. It doesn’t look red and blue in person but rather more pink and purple in the noon day sun and like the entrance to an amusement park or a Christmas candy decoration that went up a bit early.
Being a contemporary artist, I didn’t immediately recognize this as art per say, but thought it a strange and peculiar decoration which I found myself wishing would be taken down soon. Apparently however it cost a mint and is to be a permanent fixture in Seoul.
It may well attract tourists, perhaps not so much for the art aspect, but perhaps more for the shear oddity of it.
Koons *shudders*
That spoon bridge: World’s Largest Spoon as vandalised by by Uri Geller. LOL
Fits up there with the Wawa Goose and World’s Largest Perogie in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.
The peppermint poo isn’t so bad. It may even become a frequently photographed symbol of sorts, like the outdoor art that adorns downtown streets in many North American cities. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Qingdao, China, was all the sculptures around town, which gave the city an artsy feel. Many eastern cities in China have a downtown plaza anchored by a large sculpture to symbolize the city. Below are a few links to Qingdao’s famous seaside red sculpture invoking the image of swirling sand:
http://www.greatestcities.com/....._small.jpg
http://www.muztagh.com/images/.....square.jpg
http://www.centurychina.com/pl.....square.jpg
The examples you have provided links for Songagi, are IMHO beautiful and striking examples of what art can be and how it can enhance a city and the cities international appeal.
However as an artist I am alarmed when I do not recognize a permanent sculpture as ‘art’ specifically but instead dismiss it as an odd decoration perhaps marking the opening of a festival or a coming holiday. Art has a very important function in society and at the very least it must be recognized as Art.
There are those of course who would say that this piece has elicited enough commentary about arts function in society and what art is, proves that is it worthy. Even as a member of the profession I must admit that has value, but still I am left wanting with this work, it is a little too mystifying and a hair bit too obscure.
Well, I like it!
re #65
jeez, Sonagi
that Qingdao sculpture is way way better than that monstrosity in 청계천
i asked a bum about his opinion of that poo considering that it costs 사십억, and he said
아이고! 사십억! 평생 살아요!
bwa haha
Hey, on the plus side, it does provide a pretty good target for drunk businessmen to urinate towards at 2am. Which is what all great art should do.
사십억? That swirly peppermint candy poo ain’t worth that much. Perhaps next time, Koreans could look westward instead of eastward to find talented sculptors of outdoor art.
It is ugly, but there is at least some hope just down stream. There is a very cool structure that someone modeled after Cheomseongdae in Gyeongju. Instead of stones they used headlights…very cool effect at night. Anyway, it looks much better than the pile of poo at the head of the stream. Seoul already has colorful poo sculptures in Daehangno, they don’t need another one.
I’m not so sure about the new city hall building. I like the current one and if they are going to add onto it, they should try to incorporate something that has a similar style, not something drastically different like they have pictured. Just looks weird to me.
sewing, I just played around with the clone stamp tool in photoshop - no big thing, anyone can do it.
I don’t like the existing City Hall, sort of looks like a detention center to me. I’m not aware of any reason why the designers or the city would want to keep it. Perhaps there’s some historical signifigance? I’m fascinated by the idea of taking the forces in the plaza/ intersection through to the smaller street behind City Hall. They could literally break through their existing rear building proposal and create passage from plaza to that back street if they created another opposing tower.
It would also be less complicated structurally to build the entire underground parking garage. More cues from the palace across the street would be interesting.
Cascading gardens on upper floors never works - nature will eat ya alive. And round towers look “cool” but they’re not practical, they cost too much and they waste space.
(well, I have a degree in arch but I do not have a license)
from the kt article
“Reacting to the local negative sentiment, Oldenburg said that it would take a while for people to understand the concept.”
yeah, like why is there a USD4 million shit monument at the headwaters of 청계천
The thing really does look worse when seen in person, so to speak. Is it just me, or is there something distinctly SE Asian about both the colors and the shape, like something better suited to KL or Jakarta?
You see, when you hire a “pop” artist to make something, you can’t expect it to fit into bourgeois concepts of beauty.
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Kickin’ Off Chuseok!…
Yep, my weeklong vacation has begun! Starting off wonderfully; beautiful weather, the girlie back from China, and an afternoon of no pressures of work. We went down to Jonggak to hit the bookstore; I like to flip through their……
[...] Seoul Museum of Art. The artists were paid $600,000, and $3.4 million was spent on production, with the entire cost paid for by telecommunication conglomerate KT.Folks this is another example of why Seoul will never be considered a true world renowned city such as Paris, London, New York, or Tokyo. How the hell did the Seoul government think that this monstrosity would attract international visitors? It looks like it will attract UFOs before it ever attracts international visitors to Seoul. However, at least the Seoul City government’s design for expanding Seoul City Hall at least looks really cool:More on this at the Marmot’s Hole Explore posts in the same categories: Korea [...]
[...] I believe a similar rationale was employed by Seoul City before they put up the Big Pile of Poo on the Cheonggyecheon. [...]