Visit: Paju Book City

The concept of an industrial city exclusively for books sounded odd to me, and that feeling lingered as we arrived at the side of a main carriage-way, what seemed like a lot of unfinished public space and some interesting-looking buildings.

Paju Book City promotes itself as a place which is ‘fundamentally different from the past practice of making cities fill space’. Nestled amongst the Hangang’s wetlands and Simhak mountain it is described by Yi Ki-ung (Chairman of Bookcity Culture Foundation) as a place in harmony with nature, of humanistic qualities, which aims to restore a common value. He blames the loss of a collective attitude on Korea’s modern history; Japanese rule, the Korean War, authoritarian rule, and an influx of Western culture on Korean society.

Mapping Paju Book City

Left - right: Looking across reed stream to Simhak mountain, Figure ground, Reed stream, 'Green' space, Road (vc)

All maps show outline of mountain edge to west

The surrounding make their impression and the reed stream running through the city shapes the layout to the north end of the city (see plan). However, the integration of landscape within the city – between buildings for example – lacks the presence that I had expected, and hoped for. The ‘green spaces’ as shown on the map tend to be gravel car parks or untended planted areas. Of course, ‘landscape’ is described very differently by architects, including Beigel where he describes his ensemble of buildings at Paju as landscape themselves (see post).