LMB’s transition committee seems to have a plan for “seeking harmony and balance in urban areas and buildings by introducing the concept of public design.” Called “Design in Korea”, the idea is to have “architecture and urban design subcommittee under the State Architecture Commission”. They even have plans for nation-wide bike paths!
Finally, a plan that everyone can get behind. One can only hope they focus on eliminating the stickers and cheap-looking banners that are a constant eye-sore.
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Overall, this could be a step in the right direction. But at the same time, we should be aware that long-term Seoul City Planning that was largely initiated under 2MB calls for the wholesale demolition and reconstruction of neighborhoods to modernize the city.
What is not so well known, these “jaegaebal” or redevelopment schemes heavily favor the construction and real estate companies and essentially cheat homeowners, who end up being fooled into going along with these schemes as well as those who are forced to sell in a sort of Korean public domain operation.
What is perhaps even more alarming in the long run, many of these neighborhoods targeted for redevelopment have some of the last han’ok houses — many in reasonable condition.
Yes, there is Bukchon that has been declared something of an architectural preserve. But should you live in a han’ok elsewhere in the city, you may very well be in eventual jeopardy of having to be forced to move out of your old fashion, “ugly” house so a new, “pretty” high rise apartment building may be built.
And, by the way, it will be highly unlikely you will be able to afford to move into one those apartments at the end of the day — no matter what the construction company swindlers may assure you. The construction companies have all sorts of small print clauses to make sure that the former homeowners lose big time.
The reason this nationwide practice persists is due to systematic corruption at the gu- and sometimes city-level realms of bureaucrats who are not above openly and cynically violating their own regulations for personal gain.
Well, no surprise there, once you trip over these sordid facts. But more people need to be aware of this before giving redevelopment schemes carte blanch support.
This concern may be a separate issue from applying standards for new buildings, but keep in mind new buildings are usually built on locations of former, old buildings.
I just hope that Pres. Lee’s DIK will make South Korea a better-looking place. And hey, with the SAC behind them, how could they fail?
Tom raises an interesting and important point. If the path to beautifying Seoul is paved with ugly corruption and the same sort of old ideas of “development” (destroy everything), then everyone will lose out to the development shell game that has been so common in Korea.
#2
…….brilliant!
If Korea does build more bike paths the next thing that will need to be done is to get people to use them. There is a bike path along highway 3 over in Dongducheon and still people will ride their bicycle on the highway.
#5 I am all for biking but I dont think it will be such a good idea to mix bikes and cars in Korea. Dont forget how narrow our roads–I mean car paths–are and how violent the driving is in Korea. I can just see the accident numbers shoot through the roof.
namdaemun is as good as it gets