Bunkers as difficult heritage: imagining future for underground spaces in Seoul

This paper examines underground bunkers in Seoul and explores different ways of reusing spaces that have a problematic heritage. In particular, I look at three bunkers in Seoul – the Yeouido, Kyeongheegung, and Daebangdong bunkers – in comparison to subway stations and other underground spaces designated as potential shelters by the state. I divide the bunkers into two types: those that have been in disuse or used for non-military purposes in peacetime, a distinction that corresponds to two different ways of envisaging disused bunkers. I argue that, unlike in the US and Germany, where wartime bunkers offered a psychological defense, in South Korea, bunkers failed to instill a sense of security, and so they contributed to the absence of discourse in South Korea about a possible life underground or a “bunker society.” After analyzing the three bunkers and comparing them to more mundane underground spaces, the paper concludes that bunkers can be incorporated into everyday uses through small-scale design interventions that encourage resident participation, and this incorporation will not necessarily entail a loss of memory or a trivialization of traumatic historical events.