[Square] Seoul Waterfront City Gallery

Kang Byung-geun, Seoul City Chief Architect

"The opposite color of pain is beauty."

German philosopher Nietzsche said that "art is the saving magician and skilled healer that magically makes the unbearable and terrible aspects of existence disappear" (Han Byung-chul, "The Society of No Pain").

The greatest art is "building relationships." Art is about reconnecting what has been broken and harmoniously linking things that are heterogeneous. The pandemic, through "social distancing," has fragmented everyone and everything into pieces. We are endlessly experiencing an era where even the final meeting with parents and siblings who leave for a "place without pain" is not allowed. We are facing a timely challenge on how to create the "art of life" that heals pain in Seoul.

The plan to transform Seoul’s urban spatial structure into a "waterfront (subyeon, 水邊)-centered" one is not simply about beautifying the visible city. It is a plan to enable all citizens to approach the "waterside where naturalness is restored and life is born and grows," making it a "resting place (third space)" for citizens. This is a way to improve citizens’ "quality of life" and elevate the "urban dignity" of the capital Seoul. The goal is to allow citizens to enjoy "waterfront and ecological experiences as well as cultural and leisure spaces" at the confluence of Tancheon, one of Seoul’s four major tributaries connected to the Han River, a place where Seoul citizens have not experienced the waterside before.

The "Seoul Waterfront City Gallery" on one hand connects the new Yeongdong-daero Central Plaza, COEX, and northward to Bongeun Park, as well as westward to Seolleung and Jeongneung, linking the waterways originating there into a single urban space. On the other hand, it spatially connects the newly developed Sports Complex and Tancheon to form one city, creating a large-scale covered park over Olympic-daero to link the Han River and urban space.

Along the Han River waterfront, marina facilities capable of docking yachts and pools for water play will be created, establishing urban leisure spaces where people can swim again in the Han River. The project aims to break down the "boundaries" between urban space and waterfront space, between sameness and difference, continuously connecting them into a single "line" that rises, falls, and links three-dimensionally, creating a "city gallery" to enjoy while walking. Every "thing" and "place" encountered while walking will be made to deeply permeate the heart with the language of "emotion," transforming the divided and fragmented social community into a single happy community. This is the "future emotional city Seoul" we will build together. By continuously transforming Seoul’s 336 km-long waterways into central spaces of daily life, Seoul’s global urban competitiveness can reach the highest level.

The capital city Hanyang was originally planned with Cheonggyecheon, an inland waterway, as the center of urban space. Thus, the urban space was divided into "Bukchon," "Namchon," "Dongchon," and "Seochon" around Cheonggyecheon. Twenty-five tributaries originating from the four inner mountains (Naesasan, 內四山: east - Naksan, west - Ansan, south - Namsan, north - Bugaksan) join Cheonggyecheon, flow into Jungnangcheon, a tributary of the Han River, and merge with the Han River. The Han River waterfront in Seoul alone stretches 41.5 km, flowing through more than half of the 13 autonomous districts. If the waterfront is expanded to 500-1000 meters to create a waterfront city, how many inland cities with a population of 10 million and water like Seoul can there be in the world? Moreover, this is not just any waterway, but the capital Seoul’s waterways are like jade beads descending directly from the sky, flowing from the Bukhansan Valley National Park and the outer four mountains (Oesasang, 外四山: Yongmasan, Deogyangsan, Gwanaksan, Bukhansan).

From waterways that were once treated as places to dump trash and hide from sight by covering them, sometimes turned into roads or sewage treatment tanks to dilute and purify polluted water, Seoul dreams of creating a waterfront city where children can bathe again and citizens can cool off by walking along the waterside in hot summers. This is the spatial structure of the "waterfront-centered city" Seoul envisions. As time passes and eras change, it is hoped that this dream and plan will not change, and the Tancheon waterfront-centered "Seoul Waterfront City Gallery" will prove this.

Kang Byung-geun, Chief Architect of Seoul City