Happy March 1

by Robert Koehler on March 1, 2012

In case you have time for a stroll today, I relink to last year’s photo essay on March 1 Independence Movement sites in Seoul.

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Year of the Dragon March 1, 2012 at 9:26 am: That is a lot of people at Seodaemun Prison.

The couple of times I have gone there, there were only one or two people there.

well, some of us have to work today.
2 bumfromkorea March 1, 2012 at 9:34 am: You misspelled Yu Gwan-sun (hyperlink in the third paragraph after the first set of pictures).

Ironic given its grim past, the prison itself is rather charming architecturally, as many older prisons around the world tend to be.

Why does that trend exist? Did the prison architects of the past basically thought ‘It’s prison, but it still has my name on it, so…’?

Incidentally, it’s not 삼일절. It’s apparently 개천절.
3 Robert Koehler March 1, 2012 at 9:58 am: Why does that trend exist? Did the prison architects of the past basically thought ‘It’s prison, but it still has my name on it, so…’?

It’s not just prisons, actually. I’m always amazed how it seems in the old days even utilitarian industrial structures were built with a sense of style.
4 SomeguyinKorea March 1, 2012 at 9:40 pm: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2711476/
5 setnaffa March 1, 2012 at 10:01 pm: “…even utilitarian industrial structures were built with a sense of style…”

Art Deco? and well before…

Ended in my hometown in late 50s/early 60s “bauhaus movement”… Tearing down Victorian mansions and replacing them with trashy concrete boxes… Which, by the way, require more maintenance in a damp climate…