Seoul is introducing guidelines that, if implemented, will clean up all the ugly signboards that apparently pollute the cityscape:
Cale Gladhard, an English teacher from the United States, still vividly remembers the irritating confusion caused by big, horrible outdoor signboards hanging from shops and buildings when he first arrived here 10 months ago.
“When I first came here, I found outdoor ad signboards were confusing,” the instructor in Seoul said. “But what was more confusing was none of the streets had addresses, which made it hard to find specific places.”
Most other foreign nationals also agree with the view that Seoul needs to overhaul signs to make the capital more attractive.
David Lee from Newport, a 28-year-old teacher, said, “They (street signs) are too cluttered. All of sudden you get 10 different signs all together and it takes a while to figure them out.”
Seoul seeks to promote the city as a world center for design but it is struggling with messy and garish shop signboards and confusing street signs, which were installed without any proper standardized system.
To tackle the problem, the city has introduced guidelines for signboards and street signs as part of its project to upgrade the cityscape.
This plan goes back to earlier this year — see here and here.
Whether it actually happens, we’ll have to wait and see. Personally, I don’t mind the clutter. In fact, I think it conveys energy and life. But as I say, that’s just me — I like my cities a tad on the cluttered and hectic side. Chaos has character.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Koehler: I am calling B.S. on your title and concluding character. I think you have picked up the poor satire bug from Brendon Carr. I don’t believe anyone could actually wish that verbal eyesore onto any city. If anything, your eyes have grown accustomed to it, as they do to a blemish on the face of a loved one. But it doesn’t mean that you would *want* that loved one to have an extra blemish.
You’re perfectly free to call BS.
Doesn’t necessarily make it so, though.
To each his own.
At least it’s better than HK, what with signs going out over the street.
I suggest Seoul city (or even Korean gov) hire a select a panel of English teachers and pay them consultant wages to plan their city better – make sure they fill the panel with mostly American teachers too.
I can go to various places in Seoul and take pictures of well-done signage that is wonderfully creative and a result of taste instead of legislation.
If more shop and building owners catch on, the whole cityscape could improve but there will always be the clueless hack that has no eyes or compulsion in creating an eye-sore. Where I live, the “egg building”, that looms over the Seoul National University Entrance (Green Line) is a good example of such a “shi-jang” style eye-sore.
“Personally, I don’t mind the clutter. In fact, I think it conveys energy and life.”
Only up to the point that it becomes an eyesore.
I find it wonderfully paradoxical that a man who prefers to spend his weekends shunning modernity and taking photographs of colonial and other old buildings should now be extolling the virtues of unfettered signage!
Not at all, my friend — beauty comes in all shapes, colors and forms.
Still I say, your eyes have simply gotten used to seeing chaotic signage on every building. If they were not there, you would never ask for them.
Take the Bank of Korea building. It looks okay as it is. If someone were to start hanging banners and affixing fluorescent signs tomorrow, you would cry out in outrage. Rightly so. But if the signs had been there since you were small, you would say they belonged there. Because that was all you knew.
So it is with these unsightly things. It has gotten so that I don’t even know what is in the tall new buildings near my local station because there are LED moving signs, fluorescent signs, banners flapping in the wind – in short it is total confusion.
Now to a libertarian who dislikes government regulation of anything – no matter how bad – it might reek of fascism of the worst order to dictate how businesses can hang up their shingles. But to most of us, it would just make the streets nicer to be in, and (believe it or not) businesses EASIER to find.
There are few things I remember more vividly than drinking in all the varied signage when I first arrived in Korea. When I visit Korea these days I still find it endlessly entertaining to read the signs when I ride a bus.
Let’s just hope the city officials don’t get too excited and hire people to do the acutal designing of the signs. Our eyes wouldn’t be sore, they’d bleed.
Well, yes Hamel, if I saw big banners on the BOK Building, Gyeongbokgung or other protected buildings or buildings I deemed of architectural/historical/cultural interest, I’d be more than mildly annoyed. Seeing garish signs in Myeong-dong and other commercial area? Not so much. Cities are culturally and aesthetically complex organisms.
I’m with Robert on this one. I like the Blade Runner look.
At least I prefer it to the ugly billboards lined up through my city’s highways.
“Not at all, my friend — beauty comes in all shapes, colors and forms.”
So, you don’t mind seeing old colonial era buildings that have every inch of their facade covered in cheap-looking business signs?
Now I for one would welcome the Blade Runner look. Bring on the massive pyramid shaped Tyrell Building, the Japanese singing advertising blimps and perpetual rain. Oh, and those hovercars. That would so ROK Korea!
Well, let me qualify that — I like the Blade Runner look in certain neighborhoods. I wouldn’t like it in Bukchon, for example. Like I said, cities are complex — each neighborhood has their own distinct history, personality and character.
I would mind. Ugly — and disrespectful — comes in all shapes, colors and forms, too.
#5 Agreed with the egg building, that too is also my old dong-nae. I was just there recently on a visit after leaving two years ago now. The Egg building (ugly and yellow), new apartments (shit-brown colour and nowhere near as big as the model picture) and the Gu-cheong (somewhat creative but not sure how it fits in) have all been finished since I left.
Things change pretty fast in Korea…sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
But why should only “certain neighborhoods” (emphasis in original) be spared, while others – mine namely – be made to look cheaper than a sextegenarian prostitute? If cities are so complex, then let it all go that way.
And who decides the “distinct … personality and character” of each neighborhood, anyway? What if the citizens of a -dong or -gu decided they were sick of sloppy signage?
I don’t know what’s so hard to understand about my being impressed with Sarah Palin.
Because certain neighborhoods are historically and culturally different from yours, which apparently looks cheaper than a sextegenarian prostitute.
Nobody. For instance, nobody “decided” that Bukchon is not Yeongdeung-po. Do disagreements over a neighborhood’s character exist? Sure. Architecture’s a minefield this way — not always obvious what fits and what doesn’t.
As a general rule, I don’t like any authority — be it national or local — infringing on property rights. As a practical matter, I recognize that properties and neighborhoods of particular historical and cultural significance should be protected, much in the same manner that the state protects areas of particular scenic or ecological significance as part of the national park system. Also as a practical matter, I have no problem with local authorities crafting ordinances on public space — and the visible exterior of buildings arguably could be defined as “public space” — in accordance with local sentiment. So if your dong office legislated to rid itself of the signage, fine. Whether I thought that was a good thing, however, would depend on your neighborhood, about which, I confess, I know little about other than it’s not particularly close to where I live.
one never take anything a noob says seriously, but koreans just don’t get that.
i like the clutter, the noise, the sidewalk driving, and the douche selling hobak and gamcha outside my window. it’s all distinctly korean.
changing shit just makes it more comfy for white people.
…love the neon chaos…
I think it’s not coincidence this post was immediately followed by one about the failure of Korean tourism marketing.
The solution to both is simple : don’t remove the character that makes Korea Korea, warts and all. Korea is not Sparkling, and I’m very happy with it like that.
So, Robert, I’m with you.
I’m with Mr. Koehler on this too–it’s the character of a big Asian city to have chaotic signage, and if you removed it all that would be left is a lot of dull architecture. It isn’t everywhere in the city anyway, so there are many places to go to give your eyes a rest.
I also like the signs, and HK is even better.
You must log in to post a comment.