Urban Morphology and Commercial Architecture (2002.12)

Urban Morphology and Commercial Architecture on Namdaemun Street in Seoul
International Journal of Urban Sciences. 6(2), 2002, 141-154

KIM, Sung Hong & JANG, Yong Tae
The University of Seoul, Korea

Abstract:
This paper is about the transformation of urban morphology and the emergence of new commercial architecture in Seoul during the Japanese colonial occupation period. While Japanese administrators used urban planning as a most decisive tool for colonial management, Japanese retailers introduced the department store for expanding their market territory. The intent of this paper is three-fold: first, to examine the urban morphology of a new business and commercial centre in Seoul, review the Japanese urban planning intervention, and describe the spatial distributions of new types of commercial architecture; second, to look specifically at the spatial configurations of the department stores and compare them with those in Tokyo; and finally to discuss how these commercial buildings had significant spatial impact on the development of architecture and urbanism in Seoul.


Introduction

Importing a new type of architecture into an urban setting generates tension, and sometimes conflict. This affect is heightened in cities that have remained stable and without significant changes for several centuries. During the 1910s through the 1930s, new types of commercial architecture - banks, office buildings, hotels, and department stores started to be built in the heart of Seoul. At this Japan was attempting to employ a new urban planning strategy suited to colonial management and control. As the occupation period was regarded as a dark age in Korean history, the construction of these buildings was seen as a means of fabricating efficient and decisive components of colonization. With this view, the spatial configurations of new buildings and their relationship with urban morphology has been ignored. There is little information or debate regarding what urban context these new buildings emerged in. Perhaps architectural historians have been motivated largely by questions concerning iconographic and symbolic aspects of Western and Japanese architectural "styles" embedded in these buildings. There is still little heritage value ascribed to the socio-spatial impact of colonial architecture. The distinctive rupture in the architectural history of Korea is unavoidable. The break-troughs of architecture are, however, not totally independent from the continuities of the city. Urban architecture in particular maintains remarkable permanence and continuity in conserving evidence of  its past urban culture for present and future generations. Furthermore commercial architecture became an important form of public relations in the twentieth century. It is only through an understanding of urban and architectural transformation that a much longer historical perspective of modern Korean architecture can be delineated.

One of the first steps taken by Japan, after taking possession of the Korean peninsula in 1910, was to express the achievements of Japanese administration and its capacity as a colonial power. Under the Street Improvement Act of 1912, narrow streets were destroyed and replaced by straight spacious thoroughfares. However, the street improvement plan was not totally new to Korea: at the end of the nineteenth century, in the Daehan Jeguk period, radial avenues were planned to impose on the existing fabric. The plan was very much in the spirit of Baron Haussmann, a symbol of restoring royal authority against foreign superpowers. What the Japanese attempted was to substitute earlier radial schemes with wider linear street systems. At this time, modern urban planning had not yet fully been implemented on the island of Japan. Until 1919, when Japan's first City Planning Act was established, Japanese planners had acquired knowledge of advanced Western planning theories and experimented with this newly obtained knowledge in its occupied territories.

The Chosun Street Planning Act, generally considered as the beginning of modern planning in Korea, was introduced by Japan in 1934: It included the zoning ordinance with regulations of maximum and minimum height for the buildings. However, the act did not encompass comprehensive planning or urban design. After the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, the Japanese planning system returned to a pragmatic approach centered on land readjustment without consultation or compensation for the landowners. Japan applied nearly the same laws and techniques in Seoul as on the mainland, although more forcefully than at home. Furthermore, towards the second half of the 1930s, Japan's efforts were focused on military facilitation and disaster prevention. It was natural that Japan's urban intervention in Seoul was largely sectoral: the reformation was confined to improving the major road network and it did not reach down to the interior blocks. The plan was primarily implemented in the southern part of downtown, where Japanese civilians had settled from the late nineteenth century.

Figure 1: Map of Downtown Area, Seoul, 1936.
(Source: Jang, Yong Tae, 2002, A Study on the Department Stores on Namdaemunno Street in Seoul during the Japanese Colonial Occupation Period. Master Thesis. University of Seoul. Redrawn based on the Detail Map of Seoul, 1936, in Hur, Y.H., 1994, 600 Year's Maps of Seoul, Bumwoo Publishing Co.)

Namdaemunno during the colonial occupation period

Namdaemun-no(NN) was Korea's second largest commercial street from the fifteenth century until the 1970s. In Korean, the word 'Namdaemun' means 'south gate,' and 'no' denotes 'street.' The name did not appear until the map of 1908 was published. The street started from Jonggak, the bell tower on Chongno street, southwards to Seoul Station. The area studied is the Jonggak - Sungnyemun (the original name for Namdaemun) section; today the selected area is located in the very center of Seoul. When NN and Chongno were planned in the late fifteenth century, the junction appeared T-shaped or more closely 丁-shaped (similar to the Chinese character). While Chongno was relatively straight, being unaffected by any anomalies of terrain of the area, NN was a geographically planned street: it had a curvilinear shape following the creek. The government built shijon buildings along Chongno and the northern section of NN. The shijon was the shop whose function was limited to the supply of goods to the government and upper classes. The shop was under the direct control of the government and it was obligatory to seek permission to open a shop. Towards the eighteenth century, however, commercial activities were no longer restricted to the shijon area. We can speculate that shops gradually extended down following NN towards the south gate. The urban lot is evidence of this. The map of 1936 shows an alley that runs parallel to NN from the north end to the south gate (Figure 1). The depth of the lots between the alley and NN was no larger than 20 meters, while the frontage varied from about 10 to 50 meters. It has been argued that the interior of the shijon building was not deeper than 20 meters. This finding indicates that despite the ongoing transformation of architecture, the urban fabric of NN remained without significant structural transformation over several centuries.

Between the 1910s and 1930s, NN could be divided into three segments in terms of urban morphology. The first segment is from the Chongno junction to the Ulgiro junction; the second from the Ulgiro junction to Sogongno junction; and the third from the Sogongno junction to the south gate. At Segment 1, one layer of lots on both sides of the street covered the urban fabric behind. This configuration was distinguished from the urban block which consisted of two layers of divided plots each facing a street, found in many European and North American cities. The lots in the middle of the blocks were slightly larger than the perimeter lots and the internal streets were much narrower than NN. The shape and orientation of the inside lots did not have a cohesive pattern and often produced dead-ends. At Segment 2, the perimeter lots along NN had patterns similar to those in Segment 1. But the inside lots became much larger and more irregular than those of Segment 1. The largest parcel in the west block spanned almost 30,000 square meters, while a small parcel at the perimeter did not exceed 200 square meters. In the Chosun period, the residences of high-ranking officials occupied the most privileged spaces in the city, usually deep recessed from the main streets, while the merchants held the least privileged ones, facing the commercial street. The largest lot in Segment 2 was the residence of a princess in the fifteenth century, later were the quarters for the Chinese ambassador, and finally became the Chosun Hotel in 1913. The internal lots were also larger than the perimeter lots. However, the blocks were subdivided into smaller parts and appeared to have a quasi-grid pattern in contrast to Western configurations. These lots were the sites for new office buildings. Further down to the south, the long and large parcel in the middle of the block was also the site for a high-ranking official's residence and later the Chinese embassy. Two points about the morphological features of Segment 1 and 2 may be made in summary: one l

The most distinctive morphological feature in Segment 3 was the discontinuity of the wide-frontage and narrow perimeter lots. Particularly near the Sogongno junction, the lots became drastically irregular. Not only were the perimeter lots larger than those inside the block, but also the depths of these lots were longer than their frontage. This is one of the most fundamental morphological transformations in Seoul. Except for the palaces and government buildings, the urban lots for residential and retail architecture were not only small but also abutting the streets. The reversal of this spatial logic was directly related to the construction of new types of commercial architecture such as banks, office buildings, hotels and department stores. These buildings were too large to be built on the sites of traditional timber-structured houses or shops.

Emergence of commercial architecture

After 1894, the Japanese opened small shops along NN, while Korean merchants mainly developed the traditional commercial sector northwards. Street railway lines were constructed on NN in 1899. In the years to come, the number of Japanese immigrants steadily increased and Japanese commercial activities threatened their Korean competitors. From the standpoint of Japanese administrators, new types of architecture were needed for both colonial management and economic interests. Implementation of the plan was to be made through public investment such as the construction of government institutions and banks, but most development would be made through the private sector - offices, hotels and department stores. Chongno was to some extent marginalized, and there were deliberate intentions to develop a vast new commercial centre away from the old commercial street. The Sogongno junction was enlarged into a square in the 1910s and planned as the focal point of development.

What must be noted is that three major types of commercial architecture were constructed step by step between the 1910s and 1930s. The most critical building type for colonization were the banks and other finance-related buildings. The Japanese government needed a currency and financial reform to subordinate the Korean economy to Japanese corporations and merchants. Between 1907 and 1937, sixteen banks were erected in Seoul, six of them built in the 1910s alone. Most of them were concentrated in Segments 2 and 3 of NN. Among the sixteen buildings, the most striking was the Chosun bank, built facing the Sogongno junction in 1912. The building pushed forward, breaking the linearity of the wide-frontage and narrow perimeter parcels. It was visually and spatially monumental: the design was almost symmetrical with the large hall at the center and the corridors and rooms at the periphery. This spatial configuration was similar to the Government-General building in front of Kyongbok Palace. Opposite the Chosun bank, the Kyongsong (the name for Seoul during the occupation period) Post Office stood in 1913. Another building that remains, the Chosun Savings Bank, was built in 1935 at the south corner of the square. It was the site of the former Japanese Municipality Office. The symmetrical facade and asymmetrical design created a grandiose and spectacular visual effect in the square while accommodating the irregular street configuration. The internal layout was tripartite: one structural bay in the front for visitors and two rear bays for bank clerks.

The second stage of commercial architecture was with office buildings, which began to emerge in the 1920s. With restrictions removed, dozens of Japanese corporations expanded their operations in Seoul. The Kyongsong Electric Company Building in 1928 is one of the few remaining buildings. The tripartite facade was monumental even though it did not follow the strict classical plan. In order to maximize floor space within the limited lot, it had narrow frontage and deep recesses with six structural bays in length and seven structural bays in depth. If this plan were rotated 90 degrees, its structural bays would be exactly same as those of the Chosun Savings Bank. The narrow frontage and deep recesses are scarcely seen in traditional Korean architecture.

The third phase of transition was the construction of department stores. In the 1920s, Japanese retailers opened their branch shops in the Myongdong and NN areas. But it was not until the 1930s that modern department stores were constructed. The transformation from the variety store to the department store was triggered by Mitsukoshi. In 1930, the company built its first department store in Seoul across from the Chosun Bank. It was a 4-story reinforced concrete structure with about a 7,000 square-meter total floor area. Seven years later, Korean competitors built the 6-story Hwashin Department store at the corner of Chongno and NN. The building was designed by Korean architect Park, Kilyoung. In 1939, another Japanese retailer built the 5-story Jojiya Department Store in Segment 2. These three buildings capitalized on the availability of street corners that had been ignored in a traditional centralized plan involving the symmetrical frontality favored in government buildings.

From the brief examination of NN between the 1910s and 1930s, we find a disparity between the transformation of architecture and that of the city. Building construction took place before urban planning. While the Japanese administrators neglected to implement comprehensive urban planning and design in Seoul, they endorsed the construction of large commercial buildings by the private sector that imposed themselves on the existing urban fabric. For more than 400 years, Chongno was the main artery of city life, leading to its importance in retail trade. The peripheries of the street were compact with single-story timber structure shijon buildings. By the 1930s, the financial, business and retail center moved southwards, centered in the Chosun Bank square. Regarding the commercial transformation along NN, three aspects stood out as being of particular importance. First, the introduction of commercial buildings were made in procedural steps from the financial, business and retail sectors: banking and financing buildings in the 1910s, office buildings in the 1920s, and department stores in the 1930s. Second, the transformation concerns the conception of a commercial area in terms of strategic global links rather than contiguous territory. The Chosun Bank was built as an anchor for a new business center at the southern section of downtown. Mitsukoshi then served as a commercial outpost and Jojiya later intensified this strategic link. Third, and most important from an architectural standpoint, the horizontal and vertical development of commercial space was a departure from conventional spatial differentiation.

Among the new types of commercial architecture, the department store was most striking to the general public. Although the majority of people could not afford to patronize such places, Koreans opened their eyes towards the modern conception of space and the culture of consumption through this new architecture. The Japanese attitude towards the colonies differed in some regards from Western colonialism. Europeans aimed at exporting their culture and tradition through architecture and urban designs. Japan, however, did not have enough time to digest western architecture and urbanism and translate them into their own principles and norms for exporting to its colonies.

Transformation of the retail architecture in Japan

The first department store, Bon Marche, was created in 1852 in Paris. The impression of Paris' department store was best described by Emile Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames published in 1883. Denise, the heroine of the novel, was shocked by the department store when she arrived in Paris. Denise's encounter with a department store "dramatizes the way nineteenth century society as a whole suddenly founded itself confronting a style of consumption radically different from any previous known." By the late nineteenth century, Paris increasingly functioned as the centre of fashion and international consumerism. It was a time when the department store was becoming an international phenomenon. This process was witnessed in many cities, namely Paris, London, New York and Chicago. There had been a spectacular growth in the American department store business between 1870 and 1910. Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Wanamaker in New York were the famous retailers. John Wanamaker built a fifteen-story department store in 1903. Meanwhile, by 1900, Chicago could boast about Marshall Field as the largest store in the world. In London, Harrods expanded its premises into adjoining property by 1880. The present London Harrods building was built in 1905. In 1908, Gordon Selfridge opened the store on Oxford Street. The period from 1909 until 1939 was considered the Golden Age of the department store in Britain. This was the time when the first Chinese department store was built in Shanghai. But by 1910 Japan had not yet adopted Western-style department stores at home. Between the 1910s and 1930s Japanese retailers imported and reinterpreted models of department stores from Europe and America, choosing to apply this newly unfolding paradigm to occupied cities. In this respect, the way Western department stores came to Seoul is all the more an intriguing subject.

The dawn of the Taisho era (1912) coincides with the transformation from the small-scale variety shop to the modern department store in Japan. It was also in this period that 'department store' was translated into several terms in Japanese until the term 'hyakkaten,' literally meaning 'hundred commodities store,' became generally accepted. The most successful retailer was the Mitsukoshi corporation, which opened its Osaka branch in 1907, its Seoul branch in 1908, and its Dairen branch 1910. The corporation departed from traditional retail shops and erected Japan's first department store in 1914 near the Japan Bridge in downtown Tokyo (Figure 2). It has been reported that the construction and operation of the store were influenced by London's Harrods, New York's Wanamaker, and Paris' Bon Marche. It was a 6-story/1-underground floor steel and reinforced concrete frame structure. The exterior was white brick. In 1922, Mitsukoshi added the West Annex, a 7-story/2 underground floor structure with a 26,000 square-meter floor area. The main building was destroyed by the Earthquake in 1923 and rebuilt in 1927. By this time, Mitsukoshi had become an entrepreneur and established a solid foundation in Tokyo. A new subway station was linked to Mitsukoshi's underground level in 1932. In 1935, the complex was expanded and renovated; as a result, the total floor area was 51,150 square-meters with 7 stories and 2 underground floors (Figure 3).


Figure 2: Section of Mitsukoshi Department Store's Main Building, Tokyo, 1914.
(Source: Hatsuda, Tohru, 2001, Modernity in Urbanism seen from High Street - Tokyo, Tokyo: Chuo koron bizutsu.)

Figure 3: Exterior View of Mitsukoshi Department Store, West Annex, Tokyo, 1954.
(Source: Mitsukoshi Corporation, 1954, Mitsukoshi no ayumi (The Vestige of Mitsukoshi), Mitsukoshi Corporation)

Figure 4: Aerial View of Mitsukoshi Department Store Complex, 1954.
(Source: Mitsukoshi Corporation, 1954, Mitsukoshi no ayumi (The Vestige of Mitsukoshi), Mitsukoshi Corporation)

Figure 5: Map of Tokyo, Mitsukoshi Department Store, 2000. (Source: Seiko-Sha, 2000, Hi-Map Tokyo Chuo, Seiko-Sha.)

The architecture of the Mitsukoshi department store radically distinguished itself from the existing forms of retailing in several respects. First, it created a narrow frontage and deep plan to meet  increasing demand for a larger sales area. The first store of 1914 was 5 bays in frontage and 9 bays in depth. An aerial photo from the 1930s indicates that the whole Mitsukoshi complex occupied two complete urban blocks (Figure 4). This configuration has remained until today: the map of 2000 shows that the main building completely fills the 110 by 80 meter rectangular block, the annex fills the 100 by 70 meter triangular block (Figure 5). This mega-block is not common in the densely packed urban fabric of Tokyo. Being surrounded by perimeter roads, the store capitalized on public transportation: street railway lines on the ground level and the subway on the underground level. The newly built subway station was connected to Mitsukoshi's underground level in 1934. In the passageway, large show windows and showcases were installed by a French architect.  

Second, there had been pressure to make a vertical spread profile of the commercial space because of the high density of the urban setting. A flood of technical changes and innovations rendered obsolete the traditional earth-clad timber structure. It was slowly replaced by the more durable structure for high-rise buildings. The steel and reinforced concrete frame structure became the commonly used construction method, particularly after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. Contrasting the adoption of modern construction techniques were the store facades which still favored the classical styles of western architecture. The literal reuse of classical forms were common in other department stores in Japan.

Third, as the store rose in height, access to upper floors became a problem. The grand staircase was a solution. Similar to the graceful curving staircase designed by Eiffel for the Bon Marche, Mitsukoshi constructed a 2-meter wide by 18 meter long grand staircase in the main hall. A more important solution was the implementation of a mechanical lift. Previously, these lifts had been installed in head offices of banks and in corporate headquarters in Tokyo. Mitsukoshi's lift was the first one to which the general public could access. The adoption of lifts was not totally pragmatic. The lifts were initially perceived as a novelty, as was the first escalator installed in Mitsukoshi in 1914. Although the escalator did not function efficiently, it remained even after the earthquake because of its novelty.

Fourth, the revolution of store organization and display was pioneered. The plate glass for shop windows was introduced between 1888 and 1908 in Tokyo so that the goods were presented to the passers-by on streets. However, in the interior of earlier shops, the important goods were hidden in the deeper part of store away from the front and brought to the customer when ordered. In the new store, the goods were displayed inside the glass showcase for better visual exposure. As Nikolaus Pevsner stated, the modern department store was characterized by "fixed prices, clearly displayed, permission to exchange purchases, and small profit to secure quick turnover." Mitsukoshi hired those who visited department stores, perhaps Macy's and Wanamaker in New York and Marshall Field of Chicago, to implement modern visual merchandising and operation techniques.

Fifth, the introduction of a reinforced concrete structure allowed for roof gardens and space for amenities. On the sixth floor, greenhouses, artificial fountains, cafes, tearooms, gazebos, and benches were installed for the comfort of customers. The roof garden of the department store became commonplace after the 1923 Earthquake. The amenities not only made shopping more comfortable but also functioned as the urban park for families.

The department store and modernity in Seoul

The emergence of the department store in Europe and America was firmly rooted in the twin process of industrialization and urbanization. The department store tended to meet the increase in popular buying power, and the demand for standard merchandise. Accordingly, the stores demanded increasing amounts of floor space far beyond the capacities of any small shop. Japan adopted the department store much later at the time of the rise of the modern movement in Europe. Japanese retailers mixed the imported model with their own traditional merchandising principles and implanted it onto its neighbors. Unfortunately, the introduction of the department store in Seoul was conjoined with the process of colonization. Thus Seoul's department stores had something in common with the Tokyo stores, but at the same time could be distinguished from them.

The first significant difference was the scale of the buildings. The average building area of the Mitsukoshi, Hwashin, and Jojiya stores was about 1,260 square meters. Although this was only one sixth the area of the Tokyo Mitsukoshi store, this figure falls in line with the average building size at this time in Seoul. 50% of the buildings constructed in the 1930s were not larger than 100 square meters, and 30% did not exceed 30 square meters. The size of the department stores can also be compared to newly built commercial buildings in the surrounding area. The Chosun Savings Bank next to Mitsukoshi was similar in building area. The Chosun Bank's building area was almost twice of that of Mitsukoshi. Yet, if we could consider the areas to which the general public could access, the result is interesting. About 82% of the ground floor area of the three department stores were open to the customers, whereas only 28% of the areas in the two banks was open to visitors. This spatial usage also applied to other banks and office buildings. In this respect, we could argue that the department stores were the largest interior spaces that Seoulians had ever experienced.

The second feature concerns the differentiation of internal space. The grand staircase, elevator, and bathrooms occupies the rear part of the ground floor so the shopper could perceive the large sales hall as they entered the store (Figure 6). The service area and offices were hidden from the sales area. How Mitsukoshi Seoul differed from Mitsukoshi Tokyo was the shape and axis of the sales areas. While the Tokyo store was a symmetrical rectangular plan, the Seoul store was a splayed plan with the main entrance at the corner. More importantly, the Seoul store had a 10-bay wide and 3-bay deep plan whereas the Tokyo store has a 5-bay wide and 9-bay deep plan (Figure 2). It has been argued that commercial buildings with a wide frontage and shallow interior were typical in the buildings along Chongno and are a byproduct of the traditional urban fabric. This applies to the buildings along NN. The symmetrical and longitudinal organization of Mitsukoshi Tokyo was transformed into the irregular latitudinal plan in Seoul. The extreme polarization of inside and outside of Namdaemunno was closely related to the construction of a large commercial structure at the periphery of the irregular urban block.

The third feature is that the vertical layout functioned as a categorical device. The modern merchandising principles were spatially embodied. The impulse items such as cosmetics, shoes, and expensive foods were displayed on the first level; Japanese style women apparels on the second; men's suit and Western style women's outwear on the third; jewelry, furniture, coffee shops, and a restaurant on the fourth; and the roof garden, children's playground, greenhouse, gallery, and tea house on the top floor. The ground level attracted the passers-by on the street, the upper levels enticed the customers. This was based on the premise that the classification of commodities can be divided into vertical differentiation. The internalization and verticalization of retail space is a fundamental inversion of the spatial logic of the shijon shops. The Chosun Street Planning Act of 1934 had a crucial impact on Korean retailers. It required that a commercial building facing a wide street must be higher than two stories. Yet, the buildings on Chongno could not easily be verticalized because of their limitations in size and depth of the lot. Adjacent parcels were merged to accommodate buildings in the NN area (Figure 7).

The fourth is the iconographic aspects of the department store in relation to modern architecture. The urgency to build higher and larger was led by a desire to express new codes and signification in the formal language constructed. Being located in the new business and commercial center, the facade of the department store became a means of advertising. The Mitsukoshi's rather severe and massive elevation expressed a dominant corporate image. The facade was finished by white tiles similar to the Tokyo store's white bricks. Yet, compared to the Tokyo store's severe classical configuration, the Mitsukoshi Seoul store is more eclectic and instrumental (Figure 8). Although Hwashin was designed by a Korean architect, its elevation was very similar to one of the Mitsukoshis branches in Sapporo (Figure 9 & 10). Jojiya had less decorative elements with a large window. Yet the three department stores were far from the modern conception of visual language experimented on in Europe (Figure 11).

The fifth is the socio-cultural dimension of this new format in retail architecture. The emergence of the department store was the results of the excess of products and goods in the late nineteenth century. Yet, the department store was not only the site where commodities were exchanged; it entailed the aestheticized display of everyday life. Through this type of building, the new middle class appropriated consumption practices of the nobility. When this new type of architecture was replicated in Japan, it contained more complex cultural dimensions, and aspirations for exotic western lifestyles. The amenities space on the roof garden exemplifies this phenomenon. When the department store was imported to Seoul by the Japanese, the socio-cultural dimension was more complicated. Korean's experience of this new architecture was passive, superficial and distorted. Korean writers, artists, intellectuals, and particularly young women were attracted and fascinated by the new consumer culture in the coffee shops, large restaurants, and art galleries within the department store. At the same time, the cultural and ideological antagonism towards this new commercial architecture was growing.

Figure 6: First Floor Plan of Mitsukoshi Department Store, 1930. (Source: Chosun Konch'ukhoe, 1930, Chosun and Konch'uk (Chosun and Architecture), No. 1930-11.)

Figure 7: Map of Namdaemunno Area, 1936. No.1: Mitsukoshi Department Store; No.2: Jojiya Department Store; No.3: Chosun Bank; No.4: Chosun Savings Bank
(Source: Jang, Yong Tae, 2002, A Study on the Department Stores on Namdaemunno Street in Seoul during the Japanese Colonial Occupation Period. Master Thesis. University of Seoul. Redrawn based on the Detail Map of Seoul, 1936, in Hur, Y.H., 1994, 600 Year's Maps of Seoul, Bumwoo Publishing Co.)

Figure 8: Aerial View of Shinsegae Department Store (Former Mitsukoshi Department Store), 1966. (Source: The Institute of Seoul Studies, 1998, Image Data of 50 Year's History of Seoul's Development, University of Seoul. 1966-0509-01)

Figure 9: Hwashin Department Store on Chongno, 1962. (Source: The Institute of Seoul Studies, 1998, Image Data of 50 Year's History of Seoul's Development, University of Seoul. 1962-1001-02).

Figure 10: Mitsukoshi's Sapporo Branch, 1932
(Source: Mitsukoshi Corporation, 1954, Mitsukoshi no ayumi (The Vestige of Mitsukoshi), Mitsukoshi Corporation)

Figure 11: Midopa Department Store seen from Myongdong (Former Jojiya Department Store), 1971. (Source: The Institute of Seoul Studies, 1998, Image Data of 50 Year's History of Seoul's Development, University of Seoul. 1971-0420)

Conclusion

The history of contemporary Korean architecture is characterized by an emphatic break from the occupation period and an attempt to bridge the gap between the architecture of the pre-occupation period and the post-world war period. Through an examination of the commercial architecture on Namdaemunno, however, we discover that the modern conception of space was gradually introduced during the colonial period. The problem was the conflict between urbanism and architecture.  The architecture and urban planning were implemented with slightly different intentions; the former for the most effective management and control, the latter for expansion of Japanese private capital. The iconographic and stylistic forms were imitated and copied from the Japanese models with little consideration of the spatial relationship between architecture and urban space. As the Japanese planning act became the basis for the development of planning law even after the nation's liberation, the separation of architecture and urbanism has lasted until today. In the meantime, Koreans encountered the horizontal and vertical expansion of architectural space in the department store. While this new commercial architecture became a symbol of modernity to Koreans at the beginning of the twentieth century, the political reality of Korean society during the dark colonial period was anything but the promise of consumer freedom. Koreans could only fantasize about virtually unreachable exotic climes in the culture of consumption which would only truly emerge for them 40 years later.  

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*The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the University of Seoul Research Grant made in the program year of 2001.