Restoring Seoul City Wall

Over the past several years, the city government of Seoul has taken a new interest in the Seoul City Wall that surrounded the old city.

Built in 1396 four years after the selection of Seoul as the capital of the Joseon Dynasty, the wall is one of Seoul’s grandest historic structures. It had four large gates and four smaller gates, five of which remain today. Seungnyemun (Namdaemun) and Honginjimun (Dongdaemun) are the most famous gates and have become important landmarks in Seoul. A fire in 2008 destroyed Seungnyemun, but reconstruction work will be completed in April this year.

Though built in 1396, the wall has been rebuilt and restored many times since. King Sejong (r. 1418-1450), famous for the invention of Hangeul, started the first major rebuilding in 1422. The original wall was built in a hurry, often with boulders piled up upon each other, but the 1422 reconstruction used cut stone, giving the structure greater height and strength.

Like many important buildings in Seoul, the gates and parts of the wall were destroyed during the Japanese invasions of 1592 and 1598. King Sukjong (r. 1674- 1720) sponsored another reconstruction in 1704 that saw further improvements. A great wave of reconstruction in the 1860s centering on Gyeongbok Palace restored some of the gates, most notably Honginjimun.

The wall’s fortunes began to decline in the 20th century as Seoul began to grow beyond its borders. During the Japanese colonial period, the growing city needed wider roads and more space for housing and the wall became a barrier to that expansion. Parts of the wall were also destroyed during the Korean War.

A long period of neglect followed until the first efforts to restore the wall began in the 1970s. Then President Park Chung-hee sponsored the restoration of a number of sites that he thought were related to military history.

The restoration efforts of the 1970s are important because they are the first aimed at restoring an expansive structure that is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city. The next large scale restoration effort in Seoul was work on Bukchon in the early 2000s. Korea in the early 2000s was much richer and, perhaps more importantly, better educated than in the 1970s. Seen in that context, the 1970s restoration of the Seoul City Wall stands as a seminal movement in the historic preservation and restoration.

Current efforts to restore the wall are part of larger efforts of cultural branding that are taking place at local and national levels throughout Korea. Every locality is searching for a brand that it hopes will attract tourists, both domestic and foreign, to their area in the hope of stimulating the local economy. The scale of the Seoul City Wall makes it an attractive candidate for branding.

The history of restoration of the wall raises important questions about historical restoration in Korea and elsewhere. The core of the issue, of course, is why preserve something in the first place. In Park’s time, the wall was important because it helped validate his military rule by creating a military heritage in Korean history.

Now, the wall is important because it creates something to do for citizens and tourists alike. In both cases, a discussion of the historic value of the wall is lost amid contemporary claims on its use. Scholars and experts may debate the historic value, but for everybody else the main reason is to create a nice walking course for weekend outings.

Colonialism, war and the rush toward development have deprived Seoul of many sites of historic value. Koreans who have traveled overseas, including decision-making bureaucrats, come back to Seoul with a new understanding of the degree of loss. In this context, historical preservation is seen as a way for Seoul to create what London and Paris have in an effort to brand the Korean capital as those cities have done so successfully.

To work, however, historical restoration needs an audience; it needs to be loved. It needs to be more than a project for experts. The Japanese colonial government designated the Seoul City Wall as a historic site in 1936 and the designation has remained even since but the public has yet to appreciate its historic value.

Recent interest in the wall as a backdrop for hiking, however, suggests that it may eventually be loved but not for a reason that justifies the expense of restoration. This is another twist in the history of restoration in Korea.

The writer is a professor at the Department of Korean Language Education at Seoul National University. Email him at fouser@snu.ac.kr. <The Korea Times/Robert J. Fouser>