How Did Korea Become a "Land of Apartments"?

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Category: Gallery

Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society

with

Valérie Gelézeau
Associate Professor of Geography at Marne la Vallée University and author of The Republic of Apartments

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Residents of Seoul from the early 1960s would hardly recognize their city today. Back then, traditional single-family homes were the norm. Today, the South Korean cityscape is dominated by large apartment complexes (ap'at'ŭ tanji). In Seoul, the total share of apartment in the housing stock jumped from 4% to 53% between 1970 and 2006. During decades of rapid economic growth, mega-sized tanji (megaplexes) drove Seoul's urban frontier outward, and smaller miniplexes quickly transformed marginal neighbourhoods in the 1990s. This rapid change has radically changed South Korea's housing culture, and Korean culture at large.

Geographer Valérie Gelézeau believes that the causes of South Korea's housing shift are cultural as well as demographic and economic. At her talk, Gelézeau will argue that the shift augurs more than a simple response to urban growth, housing problems and land pressure.

Valérie Gelézeau is an associate professor of geography at Marne la Vallée University in France. Currently, Gelézeau is a visiting scholar at the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University and the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are focused on South Korean contemporary urban development and culture. Gelézeau's book Séoul, Ville Géante, Cités Radieuses (Seoul, Giant City, Radiant Cities) was recently published in Korea under the title Ap'at'u Konghwaguk (The Republic of Apartments). Her current projects focus on the recent transformation of public spaces in Seoul, and regional integration on the Korean Peninsula.

An urban renewal miniplex in Map'o-gu, Seoul, 2000.  Photo © Valérie Gelézeau

Exhibiting Korea