PREFACE

The Seoul Museum of History received more than 580,000 original photographic materials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which record the city administration from 1957 to 1995. The images have been reviewed and organized by year and topic, and selected photographs have been included in the Seoul City Administration Photographic Records Series, published by the Seoul Museum of History since 2010.

Two volumes documenting Seoul’s reconstruction after the Korean War between 1957 and 1966 were published in 2010 and 2011, followed by Charge and Build! in 2012 and 2013, which covered a period of intense construction and development between 1966 and 1970. In 2014 and 2015, records from the 1970-1974 period which tracked the tenure of Mayor Yang Taek-sik were published in two volumes – the early half and the latter half. This year, the Museum is publishing Let’s Go! To Gangnam: 1974-1978 Vol. 1, focusing on the city administration’s development of Gangnam and other areas south of the Hangang River during the tenure of Mayor Kuh Cha-chun between 1974-1978.

1974 was a very important year in the history of Seoul’s city administration. In the first 2-3 years of the 1970s, Seoul’s population increased by more than one million, exceeding the city’s capacity. Opening of Subway Line 1 attracted even more people into the city center from the entire metropolitan area, accelerating the concentration of population in the city center. Against this backdrop, the assassination attempt on President Park Chung-hee and assassination of First Lady Yuk Young-soo elevated the issue of emergency population evacuation to a top national security issue. Given that Seoul’s population ratio between Gangbuk (north of Hangang River) and Gangnam (south of Hangang River) was 7:3, relocation of population to Gangnam was urgently needed - both as a national security and a population dispersion policy in the year 1974.

The construction of Gangnam, which began in 1966, accelerated in the 1970s. With the adoption of the Apartment District Regulation in 1976, tangible results from the population relocation policies emerged. Also, the key policy measures facilitating the development of Gangnam included the relocation of prestigious private schools and major facilities including the Express Bus Terminal as well as the construction of Subway Line 2 that circled around Gangbuk and Gangnam. In 1975, Gangnam-gu District was newly created from Seongdong-gu District as an independent administrative unit. In the same year, the development plan for the Jamsil area was announced, including the development of apartment complexes. The urban area expanded across the region south of Hangang River, from Yeouido and Yeongdeungpo all the way to Cheonho.

The construction of Subway Line 2, Namsan Tunnel No. 3, bridges across Hangang River, and new roads provided the necessary urban infrastructure to enable the Gangnam and Gangbuk regions to operate organically as one city. Gangnam gradually came to be perceived as a “new land” for people to move to and live. This newly published Seoul City Administration Photographic Records VII presents more than 280 photographs that vividly document how the empty land in the Gangnam region transformed into a new urban area, how economic forces shifted and people moved, and finally, the process of connecting Gangnam and Gangbuk.

We hope the publication of this series will inspire more active research in the future and would like to thank Professor Kim Kwang-Joong of Seoul National University for the magnificent manuscript, as well as the members of Mochunhoe, the remembrance group for Mayor Kuh Cha-chun - Guk Eung-ho, Kim Myeong-nyeon, Kim Byeong-rin, Kim Ui-jae, Kim In-sik, Kim Chang-bae, Ryu Dong-ju, Yeon Gi-ho, Lee Ui-ik, Jeon Yun-gu, Hwang Cheol-min - for providing detailed oral statements about the city administration during Mayor Kuh Cha-chun’s tenure.

December 2016

Song In-ho

Director, Seoul Museum of History