Waste and Urban Regeneration An Urban Ecology of Seoul’s Nanjido Post-landfill Park

Waste and Urban Regeneration examines the Nanjido region of Seoul and its transformation from Nanjido Landfill to the World Cup Park, and its relation to the urban ecology within the context of the city’s urban development during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The study analyses the urban ecological meanings of the site’s two distinct forms by consolidating them with the Lefebvrian urban theory and relational ecological theories. This book looks at environmental transformations and their link to South Korea’s political and economic changes; how Seoul City controlled waste populations, the borderline characterisations of the inhabited landfill and its community, the regeneration of the landfill into the post-landfill park and site-specific artworks which explored the conflict between the invisible presence of the landfill’s garbage and its history. As one of the first accounts of a landfill and landfill-turned-park of South Korea, this study is a must-read for academics and researchers interested in waste management, ecology, landscape theory and history.

Introduction Chapter 1. Transformations of Nanjido 1.1 Pre-landfill period (1945–1977): nature Appropriation of natural environment Idealisation of nature 1.2 Landfill period (1978–1992): waste Post-industrial age and landfills of Seoul Environmental conditions of Nanjido Landfill Environmental and social ecologies of Nanjido Landfill 1.3 Post-landfill period (1993–present): regeneration Post-landfill vision and the neoliberal economic turn Nanjido Post-Landfill Park: cultural and environmental value creation The Nanji Golf Course debate: ecology and class issues Chapter 2. Sanitary Management in Post-war Seoul 2.1 Sanitation as morality and ideology Sanitation as morality for industrial and military forces Sanitation as anti-communist ideology 2.2 Control of garbage collectors: physical sanitary management Ragpickers in post-war Seoul Institutional control of garbage collectors Market control of garbage collectors 2.3 DDT: symbolic sanitary management The Korean War and DDT A belief system of fumigation 2.4 Nanjido Landfill: spatial sanitary management The waste management sites and waste itself Fumes and borders Chapter 3. Nanjido Landfill as Human Habitat 3.1 Housing in Nanjido Landfill Self-help housing (1978-1984) Collective housing complex (1984-2001) 3.2 Adequate and sustainable housing Adequate housing Sustainable housing 3.3 Garbage collecting in Najido landfill Recycling: assimilation Scavenging: disruption 3.4 Imaginaries of Nanjido Landfill Fear and threat Subversive zone Chapter 4. From Landfill to Post-Landfill Park 4.1 The building of Nanjido Post-Landfill Park Post-landfill plans Case studies for the post-landfill park 4.2 Nanjido Landfill’s regeneration Detoxification: leachate and gas treatments Aestheticisation: deodorisation and planting 4.3 The global style of parks US style and global style of parks Nanjido Post-Landfill Park as a global style of parks 4.4 Global economy and environmentalism Environmentalism in the global economic system of South Korea The South Korean middle class, ‘the public’ and the environmental concern Nanjido Post-Landfill Park for ‘the public’ Chapter 5. Art: Disruption of Nanjido Post-Landfill Park 5.1 Unease and placelessness The sense of unease Place and placelessness 5.2 Artistic engagement with the urban space Documentary photographs on the landfill Place and memory-image 5.3 Artistic exploration of Nanjido Post-Landfill Park SeMA Nanji Residency Site-specific art on Nanjido Post-Landfill Park: embodying the past-present Conclusion

Jeong Hye Kim is visiting professor of Seoul National University of Science and Technology with a primary research focus on architectural design and art in urban settings. Her subjects of research interest are thepolitical and socio-economic relationship with urban environment, post-traumatic historical spaces, sense of place[less]ness and ecological equilibrium. Translations include Hal Foster’s The Art-Architecture Complex and Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver’s Adhocism.