3. Describe a building in your country or city that you feel visitors should see in order to understand your culture or your idea of beauty.
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| Citroen DS |
So with my biased idea of beauty, let me introduce Dongdaemun Apartment, which is my favourite building in Seoul. It is close to Dongmyo-ap station and was built in 1965. Dongdaemun apartment has been called by ‘Celebrities’ flat’, since a lot of celebrities lived there at 1960’s.
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| from http://blog.naver.com/cabon99 |
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| Pics of Dongdaemun Apartment Taken by me, 29 Aug 2010 |
The main color of Dongdaemun Apartment is grey. In general, the building is cracked and corroded so it enables people to imagine the past years. Whenever I visit there, I feel like I am having a trip to the past via a time machine. Having very old-fashioned structure, Dongdaemun Apartment seems like flats in Hong Kong noir movies. It has a courtyard hardly can be seen in Korean buildings. So simply, its structure looks like Korean alphabet ㄷ at first sight, but rather, it has a structure looks like 8. In this context, it seems a maze sometimes. And all of the rooms in one floor are arranged with shared balcony access to front doors. Therefore, on 6th floor(top floor), you can see everything moving in the whole flat. Some people say that it is lacking privacy, but no one can deny such a structure reflects Korean lifestyle at that time. The washing lines(clothesline) installed from one side of the building to the other side of building are contribute to build such a Hong Kong noir film image, also. I’ve never seen using the washing line in that way in these days.
 The washing lines http://blog.naver.com/timberguy |
Because of the unusual structure and bizarre mood, some wannabe architects and photographers often visit there. And once a totally famous variety show and a movie were on location in there, visitors started to increase rapidly. So I would recommend people who visit Seoul to see Dongdaemun apartment, instead of stereotyped place. Neither gorgeous this apartment is, nor is armed with cutting-edge design. Instead, it have treasured about a half century of time and history.
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| Steel cuts of Seven Days, the movie |
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This building will be redeveloped as an art space soon by the government. So I’ll visit there as often as I can before the redevelopment. However, on the other hand, Dongdaemun Apartment may not be suitable as a tourist attraction because it can be a damage to the inhabitants.
