The Seoullo 7017: why this isn't Seoul's answer to the High Line
Having opened in 2017, the Seoullo 7017 is a one-kilometre linear park that snakes its way through downtown Seoul. Built on a now-disused elevated highway, the park hosts 24,000 plants, several lookout points, and even an ‘urban art station’.
If this is sounding familiar, that might be because the Seoullo 7017 shares several key attributes with the famous New York High Line.
However, in everything from the parks’ meanings and histories, to their structures and purposes, the two could not be more different. Kyo Suk Lee, Architect at MVRDV and involved with the design of the Seoullo 7017, sat down with me to explain exactly why.
It’s great to meet you! Let’s talk a little bit about your background – how did you come to work for MVRDV?
I’m originally from Seoul, and I studied as an architect. Working in Seoul is a very exciting thing, but at the same time it’s very tough. There are many issues to solve.
I found that I needed to train in an environment with more vision, so I came to the Netherlands in 2006, to study in Rotterdam. In 2008, I joined MVRDV.
That’s interesting, what was it about Seoul that made working there tough?
Seoul and Korea in general is a very construction-oriented place, especially at the time I was working there. Round about 2005, our economy was dominated by the construction industry. There wasn’t enough value in the design, with too much focus on generating profit. We still have that problem a little bit, but at the time it was a lot worse.
Actually, Korea now is not the Korea that I knew in 2005. I mean that in a good way.
How has it changed?
I think the difference is confidence.
Just look at what’s happened in the last five years in terms of Korean culture. There are many movies, there’s K-pop, there’s the economic situation – it’s put us on the map. So one of the biggest things that I think has changed is the confidence. Our clients in Korea now are professional, they have their own tastes. As a result, public spaces have become of a higher quality too, with different priorities, like with the Seoullo.
Let’s talk about the Seoullo – what was the background behind transforming it from a highway into a park?
In 1970, when the Seoullo was built as the highway, it was the symbol of modernisation in Korea. It’s right in the heart of the city, and it was set against a background of high-rise construction. It felt like a vision of the future.
Then there was a very interesting moment for the Seoullo, in the 1980s, when the movement against the military dictatorship at the time gathered at Seoul station. The protestors climbed up onto the Seoullo, and it was the first time that people walked there, because before then it was designed only for the car. That was a beautiful moment.
The Seoullo went from being a symbol of Korean modernisation, to becoming a symbol of Korean democratisation.
Round about 2014, the Mayor argued that the cars on the Seoullo should be detoured, and priority given to pedestrians. Initially there was a bit of resistance and reluctance from local residents. Kia and Hyundai are big economic engines in Korea, so it’s difficult to make the change. But people get used to things.
At the time, the Mayor had quite a European ambition, for a pedestrian city, with more quality space provided to the people.
Architects will always say, ‘we made the Seoullo’, but to be honest, the Mayor made it, we just designed it.
That’s a very modest attitude, but it’s clear that many people were involved in the idea and execution, not least MVRDV. How did you and your team approach the project?
MVRDV started working on the project in 2015. The way that we approached it was to make it like a tree, with branches that grow through the surrounding areas. We didn’t only have an interest in Seoullo as a park, but also as a hub or a network. It’s the starting point of urban regeneration in the area. And that’s still going forward.
But when we say the branches will be ‘built’, it’s not a hard construction, it’s more that we’ll improve the green connection, making the routes more pedestrian-friendly.
It does sound like a very similar concept to the High Line. Was that a deliberate influence at the time?
Of course, the High Line in New York is a very important reference for us. The Mayor even announced the project on top of the High Line in New York.
But it was never possible to create something like the High Line from Seoullo. The High Line is very strong, because it’s built for trains. It’s a steel frame, only eight metres high. By comparison, the Seoullo is quite weak. It was built for cars, at a time when construction was fast and not high quality in Korea.
Seoullo is also higher – 17 metres tall. This is very important because it affects the structural weakness. It means that if we planted everywhere, the structure could only support 10 centimetres of soil. So instead, we concentrated the soil so that it’s only occupying 10% of the structure, meaning we can still grow the trees in certain places, just not everywhere.
By comparison, the High Line has 40 centimetres of soil everywhere, with a 20-centimetre pavement on top.
I always say we’re the naked bridge, because we can’t afford to add anything extra. That was a big technical challenge.
So what are the hopes for the Seoullo in the future?
One thing to mention is that the Seoullo is completely top-down. The politicians dictated, and then it was done.
But what is interesting, is it was strategically done by the Mayor. He wants the Seoullo to encourage a bottom-up, or more democratic, development of the surrounding area. It’s an interesting junction between the bottom-up and the top-down. Hopefully we will continue to see the surrounding area develop and flourish, especially as the branches grow.
Was this project typical of what you and MVRDV like to do?
In general, we ¬ not only me but MVRDV – like a problem. When we see a problem, we always get excited to find a way to solve it. Seoullo was really problematic. The problem was our starting point.
Alongside the Seoullo, another project that we’re particularly proud of was in Gwangju, Korea. There’s a Gwangju tradition, since 2011, to create ‘follies’. They invite the most famous architects and artists to make strange, artistic installations in the middle of the city. But recently there have been huge complaints from the people living there, for example with installations blocking shop windows.
They asked us to create something for this tradition, but we didn’t want to upset anyone by doing it. So we found a new site by ourselves, in front of the elementary school. It was an asphalt-covered, but pedestrian-only road at the time. But the government had plans to introduce cars there.
This was the problem we found. Introducing cars would be dangerous for the students in the school. So we saved the street from the car.
Then, for the folly, we asked the children to sketch the street, sketching what they want from the space. We needed the installation to be flat, because emergency vehicles still need to travel through, so we made a different activity for each letter in ‘I LOVE’. In the final section, the children can fill in with what they like.
In this case, it was completely bottom-up. Cases like these delight us – for the Seoullo and Gwangju – we find the problem, and we solve it.
