I was in Incheon for magazine work earlier this week when I decided to take a closer look at the old Sun Kwang headquarters, a beautiful colonial-era office opposite Incheon Post Office:
Built in 1912, the four-story office was originally used as an office by Japanese shipping and stevedoring companies. In 1948, the newly formed Korean stevedoring firm Sun Kwang took over the property for use as their corporate headquarters. And so it was used for 56 years. In 2004, the company made plans to turn it into a museum to the history of Incheon Harbor, but it doesn’t appear this panned out. The building is now used as an office of Sun Kwang Culture Foundation, the firm’s scholarship fund.
A beautiful Renaissance-style building with a wonderful double-arched entrance (which may be of more recent vintage), it has yet to be designated a cultural property, oddly enough.
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Interesting pictures as usual, but you really should consider buying a tilt/shift lens such as the Nikon PC-E Nikkor 24mm 3.5. It’s just what you need to massively improve your architecture shots. Tilt/shift are a little expensive, but as you seem to do mostly building pictures I think it would be a very wise investment to get that ‘distortion’ under control.
24mm is a good semi wide on a 3/4 size sensor, though maybe a little too wide on a full size like a D700 or D3. You have the D300 though don’t you so it should be perfect. My 24mm 2.8 prime is my main lens on my D50, it’s very sharp and a very usual size. The TS lens isn’t as fast, but buildings don’t move about much do they!
Correction: usual = useful.
Ah, you and your colonial-era post offices!
FYI: Excellent display of old and current aerial and satellite photos of Incheon are on public display downstairs at the Incheon Arts Center subway and line the walkway between the turnstiles and Lotte Departmetn store. There are dozens of them and feature details of Songdo, Pupyeong and other areas.
Interesting notes I discovered:
That fake looking island on the path running along the road between Songdo New City and Songdo Resort is what remains of a real island. Extra info – The island was a destination for young, unmarried couples to find “private time” long before the landfilling started. Clever youngsters would figure out the window of time required to walk out there and back before high tide returned… to ensure they would get stuck there. If you happen to be there at night now, you’ll see it is still a favorite place for young couples to go even though it is no longer an island.
Where Incheon Bus Terminal is now used to be a salt farm and attached to the sea. Wow! It is so far from the sea now it’s hard to imagine that the mudflats stretched all the way up there… but they did. Up until the late 80s or early 90s, the sea followed what is now Sungki stream (승기천), what my friends Stan and Suzanne call “The Ditch” all the way to modern downtown Incheon.
In 1995, Songdo New City landfilling had only just begun.
The seawall road out to Daebu-do is relatively new, I forget the exact date but it’s less than 10 years old.
Check this free exhibit out before it’s gone…
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