A DIFFERENT KIND OF MEMORIAL

At the top of Mt Namsan, the geomantic southern mountain of the city of Seoul, is Seoul tower, and at the base of this tower are a number of overpriced refreshment stands, a place for the putting on of cultural events, and a collection of lookout points that take in the view of the surrounding landscape.

Lining these lookout areas is a metal grill fence, and attached to the fence are thousands of small padlocks marked with a promise. Seoulites have appropriated these places in much the same way they do anywhere they feel content or joyful - making their mark, noting their place - leaving a note to the world that there were there, and at that time they were happy.

SOUTHWARDS / SEOUL TOWER, MT. NAMSAN

Witnessing the Korean methods of mark making across the city, particularly at Namsan, and at the lantern festival, made me wonder if there was something to learn from them as examples of memorial making. Each note or padlock was a memorial to self in a point in time, that point being the present. We constantly strive to mark the world with our passing, perhaps these are the form of a contemporary memorial.

NORTHWARDS / SEOUL TOWER, MT. NAMSAN

Immediacy is a defining quality of the modern world. We mark it now, with how we feel now. We blog, we post, we text, we email, we call now. I’m not sure that we even need an immediate response. All that matters is our voice has been put out there, in the world, outside ourselves.

Can this have relevance for the typology of cemetery? Perhaps not for the deceased, but perhaps towards accessibility by the living.

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PARK YONG-HA?

Search for Bundang Memorial Park on the internet, and you are most likely to find information on its most recent famous incumbent, Park Yong-Ha. Park's acting and singing career had been on the ascendant, having won awards at Japan's Golden Disk awards four years in a row (the first to do so, and the first Korean to win at all).

THE LAST JOURNEY OF PARK YONG-HA
photo by Han Youn-joung at Asia Economic Daily via 10asia.com

He had been in Japan promoting his latest album, and during a short return to Korea to visit his ill father, hanged himself, and was discovered by his mother in the morning. Local police ruled his death as a "suicide taken on impulse" after drinking the previous night and claimed their were no emotional or financial issues involved. Sources close to Park said he recently had been having a difficult time juggling his career, his company and family problems. Many suspected that he had been suffering form depression and severe stress. Park Kun-ouc 10asia.com

A CHANCE TO MEET
photo by TD

I passed Park Yong-ha's grave at Bundang. Two young girls were knelt before it, surrounded by bouquets of flowers, sheltered by a small canopy. The mood did not seem at all solemn, the girls were talking happily amongst themselves, and a passing mourner stopped to chat about the songs and films the star had performed in. It was almost as if they were watching a clip on television and had stopped to gossip about the subject - as if his fans were acting out their relationship with him as it was before his death. The grave acted as a locus for this process, which I'm sure continues wherever Park appears in whatever media.

GRAVE SIDE FAN-DOM
sketch by TD

Seeing this interaction felt no more invasive that were I to eavesdrop on the analogous event in front of the television. A later encounter in Bundang was very different. In one of the columbarium sun-rooms of Bundang a man was sat. Before him were two glasses, a bottle of soju, and a portrait of his dead wife. The bench that ran along the perimeter of the room acted a table upon which to place the objects to enact their reunion.

AN INTIMATE MOMENT BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE
sketch by TD

I paused only long enough to snatch a photograph, pushing my voyueuristic limits by itself, and walked on - not wanting to intrude on the moment any further. I saw the man twice more, once outside the columbarium as he paused for a cigarette, on the grass terrace, before going back in to speak to his wife, and once passing him on his way back down the hill, past the offices, and masons yard, to the bus-stop.

TAKING THE SCENIC ROUTE
photo by TD

These chance meetings left me thinking. Who are memorials really for? Is it 'I am here, remember me' or 'I am here, I remember you'? Should a site be guided towards those who occupy a plot, or to those who will visit them?

Historically, Koreans were obsessed with obtaining an auspicious site for burial, even resorting to bloodshed - but this was not to commemorate those who had died, but to provide for the descendants yet to come. An auspicious site passed on its benefits much as good soil does to the branches of a tree - through the trunk. It is new growth that sustains a tree, and so it is the future that is considered, not the past or the present.

But what about those who are left behind - in the present? From the mourners at Bundang, it appears that the grave acts as a replacement for the living presence of the person it represents during a certain part of the grieving process. Where that marker is, defines the place that the continuing relationship occurs. If that marker is situated in a serene, sunlit place with a good view then it makes that part of grief all the more bearable.

In a way a memorial is for neither the grieving nor the grieved, but instead the now vacant place once held by the grieved person in their relationship with the grieving persons before death, or at death, or sometimes even after death.

This period of grief does not continue indefinitely. Eventually a different relationship forms. For a memorial to be appropriate, it should fully accommodate those relationships. For a cemetery to be appropriate it should recognise that those relationships do not begin and end at the welcome sign.

FEEL FREE TO ENJOY YOURSELF ONCE PAST THE SIGN
photo by TD

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SEPARATIONS

SEOUL NATIONAL CEMETERY

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SUGER AND SPICE AND ALL THINGS NICE

CONCENTRIC CIRCLES
photo by TD

At some point in the recent past I visited Ssangil Market in Insadong. Everywhere I go I see types and forms that feel original and innovative and astonishing, but on some level I'm sure I've seen them before. Seoul feels so familiar, but there are tiny twists that bewilder from the periphery of my perception.

SHINY BY DAY
photo by TD

This is certainly not the first multi-storey retail building I have seen, and I'm sure somewhere I've registered in my mind a slow ascent alongside shops or stalls, on a bridge perhaps, or hillside town. Why then here, where it merges together into a wonderful helix of commercialism does it feel so fresh and joyful?

SHINY BY NIGHT
photo by TD

As you slowly rise and look back at the shiny little things inside, then outside, then back in, then out but further up, to a grassy verge there is no bitter taste of cheapness or struggle. This may be the high commercial value of the site shining through, but lets ignore the cynicism for a moment and enjoy the sights.

MOUNTAIN PATH
photo by TD

If a place makes Seoulites happy, they like to let you know, and will write a message to tell you. 'I have been here,' they say, 'and I'm having a great time!' Every reasonable space is covered with graffiti, but not the sneering, smirking kind you often see in other countries, just sugar and spice and all things nice.

I WAS HERE, HERE I WAS, WAS I HERE? YES I WAS!
photo by TD

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I AM BATMAN!

BATMAN ISSUE 001 - Image via Daily News

Architects should act as detective, observing from within the landscape they hope to affect. Sometimes this may involve using the methods and mindsets of the characters with whom they hope to interact.

In order to act effectively against crime, Batman places his actions from within the mental worlds of the criminal. Equally the architect, in the mental worlds of the bereaved, of the homeless, or of the pleasure seeker.

If inhabitants of an observed world carry out their activies under shadow and behind masks of some kind, the architect should enter that world, put on the mask or dark cape. An architect should find a way to see through the eyes of the people who occupy the spaces upon which one hopes to act.

Much of what we are doing is changing the style of thinking - Wittgenstein

Perhaps I have blurred my point by centring it around a comic book character. Maybe the idea of architect as brooding anti-hero that sleeplessly solves urbanity as part of some obsessed solo mission is a step too far (or perhaps just too close to the plot of the Fountainhead). I'll save the aspects of Batman as representational of architectural mindscapes for another Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

For me to attempt a project in Korea about bereavement successfully, rather than just talking, or writing, or walking or seeing, as myself, I should retain the worlds that Koreans create for themselves within mine - Korean coloured bat-spectacles if you will.

KOREAN COLOURED BAT-PHONE? - image via Daily News

An analogue of Batman is not something to emulate in its entirety. Architects should be like Batman, but sometimes it is more effective to be like Bruce Wayne. Though part of the common places, and fully active within them, he still maintains the inner world of detective, periodicly re-entering the uncommon places costumed appropriately

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SPIRIT OF THE NATION

Reading the signs and placards dotted around the site and visiting the exhibits makes you realise that this is a country that struggled to have a chance to exist, and from all over the cemetery you can see the city that capitalised on that chance, so you can imagine visitors looking back to the city that they live in and contemplating that relationship.

Towards the western slopes - photo by TD

The cemetery is clean, and well tended, much like the rest of the city, but seems to attract fewer people than perhaps it should. Admittedly there were walkers and berry-pickers but again less than might be expected, were I in a park or an ordinary hillside. 

The exhibits were empty and when asked whether they had many visitors, a custodian replied 'No, not many, mostly students' (referring to the school trips that seem to frequent these places). This didn't really make sense. The site had so many qualities to incite habitation by living Koreans, it was as if an equation had been written, but somehow it did not equal 'people'.

Hill walks - photo by TD

Yet perhaps this is understandable. The cemetery is cut off in so many ways from the living Seoul physically; highway, valley, river Han - that it would be rational for it to be cut off mentally as well.

Towards the eastern slopes - photo by TD

80% of those interred here, died during the Korean war. Fifty years have passed since the end of the Korean war and there are now very few visitors to the graves of the war dead, giving the place a forlorn feeling. To bring back some life to this place and to ensure that those who sacrificed their lives for our country can rest in peace and be remembered, the Cemetery is staging the One Flower, One Citizen campaign. The Seoul National Cemetery Management Team

Perhaps the forlornness is due to the fact that few contemporary Koreans have immediate familial connections to the National Cemetery and could be solved by siting more internments there. A visit to an active contemporary site might confirm this. One option for 6 FEET UP could be to provide that proposal - a scheme to reinvigorate Seoul National Cemetery by linking modern memorial to historical.

I suspect the issue is a little more complicated, and believe additionally that a cemetery that is already removed from its community cannot be reattached by simply constructing a new memorial nearby with stronger bonds. If Seoul National Cemetery proves to be the most appropriate option then I will have to resolve those beliefs within the project.

Memorial exhibit - photo by TD

Walk a few metres into the room above, the first in the memorial exhibit and a ceremonial fanfare plays loudly, followed by speech, no doubt regaling those present tales of bravery and valour. I'm sure the effect is quite rousing when the room is full of its irregular school visits, but alone and English, it was rather eerie and quite sad.

Koreans seem to be a practical people. It turns out that if an escalator is left unused for a period of time it will stop until someone approaches. Though applaudable it is rather sad that I discovered this at rush hour at the new subway station for the National Cemetery.

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SPEAKING WITH SHIN

Initial Sketch drawing by TD

Having introduced Prof. Shin to some of my hopes for 6 FEET UP - a prototype for bereavement typology drawing from the psychology and technology of the modern Seoulite, yet rooted in their cultural subconscious  - she suggested that it may prove difficult to discover the contemporary Korean emotional response as such matters were so part of the ordinary. I would have to speak to people, and as many as possible.

There is an issue in Korea. There is barely enough space for the living, are inhabitants content with the space available for the dead? The Presbyterian Church is investigating use of new technologies to replace cremation - itself a 'space saving solution' due to financial and sustainability issues. If cremation is not appropriate after 100 years of implementation, what chance is there for use of any new technology? Are Koreans, and the rest of the world, going to maintain what historic rituals they can entirely isolated from the industrial acts of committal?

I hope to align contemporary life in Seoul with contemporary death in Seoul, whatever the proximity of that relationship may be. Ideally this would be realised through use of new technology, in an appropriate manner - to the full extent of that phrase.

By speaking to Koreans and researching the psychology of modern bereavement, but remembering the necessary requirements of cultural history I hope to formulate a model that represents and supports the modern Korean response to the death of other.

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THE YOUTH OF TODAY

You could jump to conclusions here. See what you want to see, but with a bit of reflection all that can be gleaned from the video (forwarded by Amanda Rashid) is that an intelligent and enterprising young funeral director has found that sharing his experiences of near death and new life settles well with others in similar frames of mind to his own at certain points in his journey.

Our minds are drawn to similarity - and to prove that similarity, will go to considerable lengths to fit in. All because having done so, we are given access to a wealth of experience of the similar - and this can be rather comforting whether faced with trauma or not.

What it does not show is that Koreans in general are willing to solve issues in life by confronting death. That may actually be true, but to make that assumption now would be jumping to conclusions.

COFFIN ACADEMY via aljazeera

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A MOMENT OF TENSION

Photo by Lazy_Artist on Flickr

Freud writes about the quality of 'unheimlich' which, though is usually translated to be 'uncanny', literally means 'unhomely'. This is the jarring feeling of the same but different, with that difference having a niggling uncertainty to its nature. Empty houses have this quality. They should be lived in. On encountering such, our minds cannot settle on a present state for that house, as in our experience the present state of a house is full. We drift into potential past and futures for the house hoping to construct some form of present. It is hopeless, and it is unheimlich. (For a better explanation of 'unheimlich' read Anthony Vidler's 'The Architectural Uncanny')

To a child the surface of a puddle is unheimlich. It hides an unhidden depth, or an unknown expanse of sky, but is still a percievable surface. In many cultures water as a reflecting surface is a gateway to other worlds, so perhaps it is unheimlich to our very psychology.

As we grow older, and experience more puddles, and jump and splash, we realise that there is no hidden depth or unknown expanse, and it is simply a component of the world in which we live. We can make of it what we choose. Were they to be ignored, they would simply remain an unknown mystery.

Perhaps the greatest instance of unheimlich is the death and grief of a someone we know.

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