Oh Se-hoon: "I will make Seoul a global success city for garden policies"

Attended the 'International Garden Symposium'... Exploring Sustainable Garden Cities
Special Dialogue with Garden Experts... Discussing the Realization of 'Garden City Seoul'

On the 4th, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon stated, "In the era of climate crisis, we will make Seoul a successful city of global garden policies." Last year, Mayor Oh announced 'Garden City, Seoul' and declared that he would erase the gray structures in the city center and transform Seoul into a world-class garden city where gardens can be found anywhere.

On the same day in the morning, Mayor Oh attended the '2024 International Garden Symposium' co-hosted by Seoul City, the Korea Forest Service, and the National Arboretum at Seoul City Hall, where he had a special dialogue with overseas garden experts about the 'Garden City Policy.'

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is delivering a welcome speech at the 2024 International Garden Symposium held at Seoul City Hall on the 4th.
[Photo by Seoul City]

This symposium, held in connection with the 2024 Seoul International Garden Expo and the 2024 Korea Garden Industry Expo taking place at Ttukseom Hangang Park, was organized to explore the importance and role of gardens amid the increasingly severe climate crisis.

The symposium proceeded with two sessions: 'Resilience of Gardens (Session 1)' and 'Walking with Gardens (Session 2).' The speakers included ▲ Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line in the United States ▲ Matthias Kohler, former general director of BUGA (Federal Garden Show of Germany) ▲ Professor Kassian Schmidt of Geisenheim University, creator of the Hermannshof Garden in Germany ▲ Ma Bow Tan, former Minister of State of Singapore, who led the Gardens by the Bay project ▲ Jeon Young-ae, emeritus professor of German Language and Literature at Seoul National University and founder of Yeoju Yeo-baek Seowon ▲ Lee Sun, emeritus professor of Traditional Landscape Architecture at the Korean Traditional Culture University, who has researched Korean traditional landscaping.

Before the main presentations, Mayor Oh held a dialogue titled 'The Only Solution to the Climate Crisis, Garden City' with Robert Hammond (current president of Terme Group US) and Ma Bow Tan (current chairman of Terme Group Asia). They discussed ways and directions to realize Seoul as a garden city through examples such as the High Line Park in the United States and Singapore.

In the sessions, Robert Hammond introduced the 'High Line Park,' a symbolic urban park reborn from an abandoned elevated railway line in New York, attracting 8 million visitors annually. Matthias Kohler mentioned the various roles of the 'Garden Expo' from an urban planning perspective through the BUGA case. Additionally, Professor Jeon Young-ae introduced the purpose and operational cases of 'Yeo-baek Seowon' and 'Goethe Village,' which she personally established with her intentions. Landscape architecture professor Kassian Schmidt shared planting ideas for future urban green spaces and garden creation through German cases.

In his opening remarks, Mayor Oh said, "While carrying out various projects to make gardens a part of everyday life in 'Garden City Seoul,' we will use the valuable opinions and experiences shared at today's symposium as a foundation to develop Seoul into a world-class successful model city for garden policies."