Seoul’s New City Hall

An old couple stood in the plaza gazing at Seoul’s newly built City Hall.

“Look at that undulating glass structure that looms over from behind the old stone City Hall building. It’s ugly,” the old man whispered to his wife. “It looks more like my baby granddaughter’s winter boot upside down. It’s rather cute,” countered the woman. “It’s more like a tsunami wrapping over the old building than an inverted boot,” grumbled the man. Then they went inside.

It’s spacious, bright and the air is fresh. The caption in the City brochure reads “Tong-Tong Tour” in Hangeul and Hanja, or Korean and Chinese characters respectively.

“What does it mean?” she asked. “It means well connected or ventilated,” said the man. They took the visitor’s elevator to the ninth floor, named Sky Plaza. “There are so many horizontal, vertical and diagonal pipes of all sizes crossing each other and the glass panes are slightly tinted blue. I can’t see the plaza down there, which must be a fantastic view from here,” now she is not happy. “Buildings need structural members,” he said.

A group of architecture students led by their professor was now admiring the glass building from the ground plaza. “Oh, wonderful, it’s all curved glass and pipes, architects’ utilitarian fantasy!” one cried out. “The curved line of the eaves reminds me of a baguette,” a female student murmured.

“Feel the architecture with your eyes, not mouth,” quipped the teacher. “It was designed to feature the traditional Korean eaves of the tiled roof,” he recounted referring to the city’s pamphlet and added “the tiled roof was characterized by the beauty of its curves in this country. The elegant contour lines were idealistically applied to the ridges of the new City Hall building.”

“Indeed, sir, but the entire structural shape does not blend in with the surrounding buildings,” one of the students opined. “Why should a new design always be in harmony with the surrounding architecture, most of which do not integrate with each other any way and they are in many cases eyesores?” remarked another.

“You’ve a point,” noted the professor. “It’s far prettier than the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris,” said another female student as she joined in the debate. “I’m glad the structural pipes in the Seoul City Hall are all hidden.” “This design is far more graceful than the National Stadium in Beijing, which terribly resembles a bird’s nest,” observed another.

“The frontal curvature glass wall, Eco Plaza as it has been named, saves significant amounts of energy as it naturally ventilates the sun heated air through the roof in the summer and distributes the sun warmed air to each floor in the winter,” the teacher stepped in. “When proportion, balance, form and function come together in a delicate harmony, architecture is nothing short of an art form. Plenty of buildings in cities all over the world have earned the ire of architects and citizens as well. It’s fine for a building to be non-conventional but not when it means sticking out like a sore thumb. Beauty also comes from harmony with the surroundings.

“That said, aesthetics are subjective, history is not. Just because a design offends the sensibilities of today’s fickle amateurs does not mean it’s ugly. Taste is overwhelmingly personal and changes with time.”

The professor of architecture continued, “Now, shall we set aside our current subjective preferences? After all, as you all have learned beauty is, or ugly is, in the eyes of the beholder.”

The author is a retired architect-specifications writer who resides in Seoul and New Jersey. His email address is sangsonam@gmail.com. <The Korea Times/Nam Sang-so>