Palace gate and vinyl houses: Urban semiotics and contested identity in Seoul

Seoul projects a destination image of Hallyu pop culture and attractive shopping and entertainment zones to the public. It is built on urban planners' and policy makers' views that a pristine modern image will be good for tourism whether this industry contributes significantly to the economy or not. On a deeper level the city's very real and contested identity is found in certain other features such as historical monuments punctuating the built landscape, and the inevitable slum at the periphery. The aim of this study is to reveal the counterpoint between heritage monuments and the slum in this urban environment. To achieve this goal, a social-structural semiotic method is employed to explore and contrast the denotative and connotative aspects of Gwanghwamun Gate and the Guryong slum as synecdochical representations of urban identity. Findings indicate the permanent transiency of these two representations manifest in different ways. Revisions to the monumental gate are publicly approved, but solutions to the identity of the slum and its vinyl houses are opaque. There are problems in policy where some might argue for valorization of the slum through tourism, while others recognize the darker aspects of tourist voyeurism versus residents' consent, and the complexities of commoditization. • This paper presents Seoul, as a fully developed tourism city. • Other features define its identity, heritage monuments and the slum. • A monument, Gwanghwamun, is an intentional representation of urban identity, the Guryong slum is inevitable. • Built features in the landscape can be conceptualized semiotically as forms and ideals. • Findings suggest that a robust identity narrative includes all aspects of the city including the attractive and the unsightly.