[Cityscapes] Peeling back Banpo's layers

A view over Banpo Jugong 1 apartment complex in southern Seoul, Dec. 5. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

By Ron Bandun

Many readers reacted to my previous article, on Korea's ugly apartment complex names, by pointing out that the apartment buildings themselves tend to be a blight on the landscape. They're not wrong, but this point is more of a conversation starter than a real hot take. And so, I've been paying more attention to the south side of the river hoping to find beauty in the dull, repetitive, colorless aesthetic of modern urban architecture.

In fact, while vying for a good position to shoot the Lotte Castle complex with giant phallic shapes on the side, I ended up scaling an abandoned apartment building across the street in the Sinbanpo area. The elevators were offline, so I took the stairs up about 16 floors, careful to avoid any workers inside. I paused my ascent to get a look in the apartment units, which were much smaller than I was expecting, small rooms with barely room for two beds. The unit owners who are participating in the remodeling process are probably looking forward to the completion of the new buildings.

I called it "abandoned," but most likely everyone had moved out for "remodeling," a process whereby old apartments are demolished and then rebuilt, albeit in a much newer form. Several such projects have been carried out across Gangnam, and I've already visited a handful in Garak-dong, Godeok-dong and Gaepo-dong. To be honest, they're not particularly exciting, just lots of buildings that look the same. But still, there has been local Korean interest in these aging buildings which are about to become extinct, mostly by people younger than me who grew up in them.

Gaepo in particular fueled a wave of nostalgia, as evidenced by the number of Instagram accounts I've found: @gaepothere, @for_gaepo, @from_gaepo, @gaepo_nyang (for the stray cats) and @gaepotree (for the majestic trees that grew tall there over the last 40 or so years). All these accounts have gone cold since 2019 due to the remodeling progress.

My first rushed visit to the Sinbanpo building was on deadline day during a light rain shower, so I came back later to take my time and get better pictures. I also decided to look up a few more redevelopment sites on the south side of the river.

But on my way to the next site on my list, I found myself in the middle of the Banpo Jugong 1 apartment complex, which is also currently undergoing a major remodeling process. This was one of Seoul's earliest attempts to mass-produce apartments, with a whopping 114 buildings. And all of them were empty or being emptied out.

It sounds like an urban explorer's dream come true, but I found myself underwhelmed pretty quickly. Parallel rows of five-level apartment buildings, as far as the eye could see, all with black numbers painted on the side. Many had "gongga" (empty house) signs on the front door. The space between buildings was mainly for parking, so I had no trouble driving around. Others were here too, going on nostalgic walks or just taking shortcuts; the security guards stationed in guard shacks everywhere didn't seem to mind, although at some point when the depopulation progresses further, I know this will change.

A sign says "gongga" (empty house) on the front door of an apartment building in Banpo Jugong 1 in southern Seoul, Dec. 5. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

It made me wonder what it must have been like to grow up in such a place, full of straight lines and right angles on such a colossal scale. It may have been a great communal place, where most of your classmates lived in the same housing and maybe you could have gone out and met them at night after finishing your studies. Or it could have been lifeless and impersonal.

A picture posted last year on the Korea Times Archive page shows a section of the complex in 1981, back when the trees were too small and the concrete still fresh white. Even the roads through the area looked different, and the dirt or concrete embankment of Banpo Stream can be seen bordering its southern edge. It's an eyesore, harkening back to the latter days of architectural brutalism: blandness, simplicity, almost in defiance of nature.

Buildings of the Banpo Jugong 1 apartment complex are seen between the Han River and an embankment for Banpo Stream, (cropped) published in The Korea Times June 23, 1981. / Korea Times Archive

But the complex as pictured 40 years ago still looks wholly unlike today's Banpo Jugong 1, with its tall trees towering over the homes, uniformly all throughout the complex, creating a natural canopy over all the flat surfaces. As the buildings aged, outliving their usefulness and losing value as demand for larger spaces and taller buildings grew, the trees meanwhile continued to grow, both in height and value. Unless they are saved and transplanted elsewhere, their removal may well be the greatest loss in the reconstruction process.

Banpo Jugong 1 apartment complex in southern Seoul, Dec. 5. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

Another change for the better is the improvement of Banpo Stream, also known as Seoritgae, now a nice, clean recreation area, if a little too straightforward and featureless to stand out among Seoul's many urban streams. Apparently in the past it had been known for bad smells, and Banpo Jugong 1 residents didn't seem to like living next to it. When Line 9 opened in 2009, a local stop was planned to be named Seoritgae Station, but 6,700 residents protested, resulting in the name being switched to Gubanpo.

I found another possible reason for their suspicion of the stream, when the Korea Times Archive posted a 1996 article, titled "Drunk Man Rescued From Underground Sewer After Being Trapped for 9 Days." Apparently Cho Song-chol, a 51-year-old man, had been walking home after a year-end party, when he fell six meters down an uncovered manhole onto a concrete surface. He survived by drinking sewer water, reminding me of the UE Kingz song "The Manhole Maniac," in which the vocalist Dr. Drain boasts of "drinking sewer water like champagne." Finally after nine days, someone on the surface heard Cho's cries for help.

A man recuperates in a hospital after being trapped in an underground river for nine days, published in The Korea Times Jan. 7, 1996. / Korea Times Archive

This story led me to take another look at that previous archive picture, and study maps of the area. On my first free day, I returned to Banpo Jugong 1 for a closer look at the stream. Sure enough, from street level all the way down to the water, it was just about six meters.

Banpo Stream, with the underground entrance straight ahead, Dec. 15 / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

I headed upstream until I found the entrance to a giant tunnel, from where the water flowed out. Massive vinyl curtains dangled over the entrance, sealing in all the unpleasant smells generated by such underground rivers. I poked my head inside, and could imagine it was exactly what this poor man ― humiliated in this paper for being a "drunk" when clearly some city worker was at fault ― would have experienced for those harrowing nine days.

The entrance to the buried section of Banpo Stream is covered with giant vinyl curtains, Dec. 15. / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

The stream apparently originates from Mount Umyeon, about four kilometers to the south, but if he fell in within Banpo-dong as described, he must have been somewhere within the first 1.6 kilometers of the tunnel mouth.

"I tried to find a way out of it but I got lost in the labyrinth of tunnels," he was quoted as saying.

Looking inside the underground river, Dec. 15 / Courtesy of Ron Bandun

Had he followed the water downstream, he might have emerged safely near his home.

Disclaimer: Don't be like Dr. Drain: never drink sewer water unless no other water is available. Stay out of underground rivers unless you've read up on the subject. But if you do find yourself fallen deep into a dark subterranean space, follow the water downstream.

Ron Bandun is an urban explorer. He has been visiting forgotten, abandoned and forbidden spaces in Korea for over 16 years, documenting the changes and conflicts of the urban environment.

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