Eumseong trip 14/09/11
After a small road trip to Daesu and Eumseong I have returned to Seoul. Being from a rural area in England it was interesting for me to experience a parallel to home in Korea. The landscape setting is one of sea and flatlands, vast plains of paddy fields, poly-tunnels, orchards and vineyards.
It is quite hard to explain how industrious the use of land is. Every square inch is used. On the bus toward Eumseong I travelled through the boundary of the city. In London High-rise becomes residential estate, and city-park becomes a back yard. Here the agriculture bleeds into the city edge. The gaps between blocks become wider, the poly-tunnels become denser, and at one abrupt moment the city stops and the agriculture resumes. This lack of sprawl offers an elemental understanding of place, an idea, even in an industrialised and highly modernised landscape of a spatial and spiritual awareness.
This idea was present in the architecture of many of our precedent studies we visited. The first of which was Yondangmeul Village, the home of two important Confucian scholars families. It sits like many of our studies on the slope of a mountain range.
The Village had a strong sense of hierarchy. The Homes of the elders sat in prime position at the crest of the mountain. These houses relate with the mountain ranges on the horizon, developing a strong spiritual connection to the place. I felt the strongest element to the village was the vertical topography. The house below never interrupts the master’s view. These houses – for the workers of the land- roofs and walls sit harmoniously in the landscape, as a natural infrastructure.
There is a new relationship between the village at present and the modern agricultural landscape. The rooftops reveal a flatland and a vertiginous city emerging in the distance.
sketch plan of Yangdongmeul village
The Seoul Chronicle 
You are right. Every square inch is used in Korea. Those things are taking place not only at the country side but also at the city boarder. I don’t think they are all industrial agriculture. That shows how fertile land is and people are just making the best use of land for their every day life.
I had never thought that those sudden stop(?)of city and agriculture in urban fringe are related with hierarchy of Yangdong village. That’s a quite fresh and interesting view.
Yangdong village has a extremely strong hierarchy which is shown at level of topography as you know. Those kind of wide range of level difference are not usual in rural village actually. When I had visited that village at first time, I felt stifling atmosphere. They are firmly closed world and maybe that’s the reason they could have been preserved almost perfectly up to now.
I am looking forward your precedent study drawing, that must be interesting. 🙂