Skip to content

Category Archives: Koreascape

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: the first Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time we visit the very first Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, a months-spanning celebration and an exploration of how cities across the world have found innovative ways to use, preserve, and improve […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: industry and culture grapple in Mullae-dong

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time we go just south of the Han River for a nighttime journey — punctuated by cats, coffee, ukulele riffs, tap dancing, and showers of sparks — through Mullae-dong. There an established generation […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Seoul’s identity crisis

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time we talk about my recent Guardian article on the branding of Seoul and the city’s efforts to resolve its ongoing identity crisis: hiring place-branding consultants, importing foreign architectural prestige, launching high-profile urban regeneration projects, putting […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Yongma Land, the Amusement Park Time Forgot

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time, along with producer Jamie Lee and a few Koreascape interns, we make the journey to Yongma Land, a long-abandoned neighborhood amusement park in eastern Seoul that has recently drawn such crowds as couples on […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Noryangjin fish Market, old and new

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This month, along with Koreascape producer Jamie Lee, we pay a visit to the well-known institution of the Noryangjin fish market — or rather, to both of them. After beginning near downtown Seoul in the […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Seoullo 7017 sneak preview

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This month, along with Yoon Il Gyu of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Regeneration Planning Division, we get up above Seoul Station and onto quite possibly the city’s most anticipated urban development of the decade: Seoullo 7017. […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: The Destruction of Bamgol Village

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This month we join urban explorer Jon Dunbar of Daehanmindecline for a walk through an old neighborhood called Bamgol Village — or what’s left of it. Urban redevelopment never stops in Seoul, and when it happens […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Euljiro Underground Shopping Center

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of another one of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time we head down into the Euljiro Underground Shopping Center, a nearly two-mile-long subterranean street running beneath downtown from the City Hall to the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Line 2 subway […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: Ikseon-dong Hanok Village

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of Seoul’s urban spaces. This time we’re joined by German-Korean architect Daniel Tändler of Urban Detail Seoul for a walk through Ikseon-dong Hanok Village, a 1930s-era housing development near downtown that has in recent years seen an influx of restaurants, bars, […]

Seoul Urbanism on TBS eFM’s Koreascape: the Bus

Each month I join Kurt Achin, host of Koreascape on Seoul’s English-language radio station TBS eFM, for an exploration of Seoul’s urban spaces. Today we spend a day riding on Seoul’s buses, which form a transportation network even more impressive, in its way, than the world-class Seoul Metropolitan Subway. We reveal three of the lines that provide the best tours […]