In Seoul, flat out for the future

Among many features that define the cityscape of Seoul, one thing makes the capital distinct. That’s the grey skyline along row after row of near-identical concrete apartments. The sea of concrete high-rises stemmed from a public housing project initiated in the 1970s to accommodate the rising urban population. It has now become the type of residence most preferred by a majority of Seoul citizens.
An exhibition at the Seoul Museum of History takes the audience on a journey through the history of South Korean apartment development and looks into the influence of the flats on residents’ lifestyle.
A real apartment unit is on display to offer a look at a standardised flat from the 1970s and ’80s, which consisted of a living room, a kitchen and three bedrooms for a family of four. The interior was moved to the exhibition hall just as the building was being demolished as part of the city’s redevelopment.
The three-bedroom apartment, built 36 years ago, is a symbol of the emerging middle class in the Korean society of the 1970s. The 75-year-old retiree who used to reside in the unit was born in the southern port city of Busan, studied hard to enter a college in Seoul and landed a job at a large company in the capital. His 71-year-old wife, a Daejeon native, had accumulated wealth by moving from apartment to apartment, leading the typical lifestyle of middle-class Koreans.
According to Park Cheol-soo, architecture professor at the University of Seoul, “apartment” is a word that explains Korean society and Koreans. “Middle-class apartment dwellers shop at supermarket chains on the weekends, dine at family restaurants. They are always keen on prices of apartments and their children’s education,” he said.
Living in a flat was a symbol of wealth in the 1970s and ’80s. A photo taken in the 1980s has a caption that reads, “Living in the Hangang River Mansion was a symbol of prosperity and pride.” Apartments with a view of the Hangang River are considered to be most expensive in Seoul.
Records by different residents, which are hung alongside the pictures, describe the life. They make clear that it had a downside. Their expansion caused the eviction of defiant tenants in shantytowns slated for development.
The old neighbourhoods of small decrepit housing, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of migrants from the provinces, have been gradually pushed aside by high-rise apartments, forcing most of them to leave when they couldn’t afford the modern housing. Apartment projects sometimes entailed violent clashes between tenants who defied eviction and builders. A section devoted to violently evicted tenants shows that about 20 per cent of the Seoul population had to leave their houses in the ’70s.
Redevelopment continues in some underdeveloped areas of the city. A section displays pictures taken by residents of the Duchon LH Apartment, which is about to be demolished. They portray happy memories in a soon-to-be-gone hometown – sledding on a hill in winter and playing in the playground.
Photographer Ahn Se-kwon’s panoramic image of Wolgok-dong, a northern suburb of Seoul where new apartments have recently been built on top of the old neighbourhood, shows two contrasting scenes. On the left are well-lit newly built apartments, and the right a district full of old houses that remain dark.
Other artists present different perspectives in paintings, photographs and installations depicting lives, memories and even humour associated with living in apartments.

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The exhibition “The Republic of Apartments” continues through May 6 at the Seoul Museum of History at Saemunan-ro 55, Jongno.
Learn more at www.Museum.seoul.kr.