63 City 360
The 63 City Buiding has 63 stories (surprise!) if you count the 3 below ground. Everyone calls it the 63 Building, and it was the largest building outside of North America when built in 1985. Now the third tallest building in Seoul, it still has the world’s tallest art gallery and observation platform on the 60th floor. The observation platform encircles the entire floor and provide a sweeping 360° panorama of Seoul.
We start looking NE with Namsan Park topped by Seoul Tower to the right and the old Josean Dynasty city to its left. Considered the city center, the palaces and most governmental offices, corporate headquarters and tourist sites are located here.
The 360 Building is located on Yeouido Island, home of the National Assembly and major TV and movie studios. The Han River (Hangang) runs through Seoul. Once a key shipping route to China across the Yellow Sea, there is no longer shipping on the Han River as its estuary borders North Korea and civilian entry is banned (ah, the joys of being at war with your fraternal neighbor).
Seoul (which means capital city in Korean) has been been on this location for over 2,000 years. It helps to remember that most of the city was destroyed in 1950/1 when the North Koreans invaded the city twice during the Korean War and then was retaken by the Allied forces after much fighting. For being 2,000 years old, there are very few historic sites left. Rebuilding the city was a tremendous achievement, even if a lot of it was monolithic apartment blocks painted with huge “101”, “102”, “103” signs to distinguish one from its neighbors.
Seoul is considered the greenest major city with 27% of the land devoted to parks. However, much of this green space is in larger parks, and not always evident at the neighborhood/dong level.
The greater metropolitan area has over 20 million people, about the same as Mexico City as the second largest city in the world (Tokyo is about 60% larger at No. 1).
Below is a closer view of the area in which we live. The pyramidal topped building to the right of center is the Gangnam Finance Center, and I work one block to its left. The large group of buildings to the right is Gangnam (the dong/neighborhood), with some of the most expensive real estate in the world. The tall white building with the dark stripe to the left is the International Trade Center, part of the COEX complex. The blocky white building to its left is the COEX Intercontinental Hotel across the street from our apartment.
And back around to Namsan Park on the left…
The art at the Sky Art Museum? A good gallery-grade collection of NYC art spanning the last half of the 20th Century on loan from local collectors, with some special works mixed in. We especially enjoyed the three works by Robert Longo (“Eric” is below). Unfortunately, the gallery walls facing the windows and sub-standard lighting produced a lot of glare and reflections – a very dramatic setting not ideal for viewing art.
seoulsessions 