Patchworked Gwanghwamun Square

When we did not have navigation apps, all you should do first was to find a church in the middle of town to travel a small city or village in Europe. There is always a square in front of a centuries-old-church, regardless of the size of a city. Gothic church steeples are easily noticed from far away and a square is connected to all directions. Monuments or other memorials, which hold a list of those killed in action during the World War 1 and 2, are everywhere. Likewise, a square is a center of communication and integration where people inherit their traditions and inspire patriotism and love of their home town.

Korea does not have such culture. Squares of Korea have changed their color differently along with history and politics. The square located in front of Seoul City Hall or Seoul Plaza was in people’s memory as a scene of Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee wearing sunglasses with high spirits for his success of May 16 coup. Yeouido Park was used to be 5.16 square where the military parade in Armed Forces Day or massive political campaigns were held. After the democratization of Korea, Seoul Plaza is now symbolized as the mecca of protests and rallies and Gwanghwamun Square is for Sewol protest tents. The scent of incense flows from the group memorial alters for the victims from the ferry Sewol when you enter Gwanghwamun Square from Sejong-daero intersection.

The Seoul Metropolitan City announced its plan to replace granite drive roads at each end of the square into asphalt roads due to the maintenance cost. The city government said that the maintenance cost was about 2.8 billion won or 40 percent of the construction fee. The city had spent 7 billion won to build the roads in 2009. In Europe, roads built in Ancient Roman era are still used as driveways. Considering that, it is nothing more than an incident that can be found only in Korea to revamp the road in seven years. Still, Europeans create semi-permanent stone roads by densely sticking on granites of which height is over 50 centimeters. It is pity to think that the city officials wished not to repair the roads even they installed flat granites of which width, length, and height are 12 centimeters, 18 centimeters, 10 centimeters, respectively. Everyone knew that it won’t last long.

The city officials should look down deep in underground to copy vintage stone street pavement roads. According to the city, some of the road will be remained intact while the rest will be covered by asphalt. It is just a patchwork square. I hope that the city government to build genuine stone pavement roads, to restrict the entrance of vehicle as London does for the Trafalgar square of London, or to recover the roads by applying traditional methods of Korea. We need a representative square in Korea.