Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

Dongdaemun Stadium was the nation’s leading modern sports facilities built in 1926 by Japanese colonists. It hosted a number of the nation’s sports matches and cultural performances, filled with cultural and historic significance as a birthplace of Korea’s sports. As the facility was aging, however, its functions became limited. With the so-called “restoration” of Cheonggye Stream, the stadium was reduced to a flea market, no longer used for its originally intended purposes. The Seoul Metropolitan Government demolished the stadium under the plan to develop the district into a tourism cluster dedicated to the design and fashion industries. This study takes Dongdaemun Stadium as an example to explain underlying meanings of capitalist restructuring of landscape which entails removal of modern cultural relics and redevelopment projects. Although Dongdaemun Stadium was not used in the way it had been designated to be used, it still had a value as a diachronic and synchronic record for the city. The rationale that the stadium should be torn down and reinvented as tourist attraction to reap huge financial benefits illustrates that the city government’s development ideology gravitated towards public works projects. This approach may harm a place’s genuine disposition or essence and create an artificially-induced placeness, undermining its historio-cultural values.