Cultural Heritage Preservation and Regional Development Conflict at Pungnaptoseong

This study examines the problem of the sustainable management of buried cultural heritage located in urban centers through the case of Pungnaptoseong in Seoul. Recent cultural heritage research has redefined cultural heritage as a resource for sustainable urban development, but that discussion has largely been concentrated on heritage amenable to development as tourism resources. By comparison, preservation conflicts over buried cultural heritage that is not exposed above ground have not been sufficiently addressed. Pungnaptoseong is a large-scale earthen fortification identified as the royal capital of the Hanseong period of Baekje, but its physical invisibility is considerable: the Baekje occupation surface is buried, and the area subjected to trial and full excavation accounts for only about 12 percent of the fortress interior. It is also situated in a location adjacent to the Gangnam and Jamsil areas, the most developed urban districts of Seoul, and possesses the structural particularity that the costs arising from long-term preservation regulation are concentrated on local residents. This study sought to approach a resolution of the Pungnaptoseong problem through a literature-based qualitative comparative analysis of various comparable cases. As a result of the analysis, the cases indicate that conflicts over urban buried cultural heritage depend less on whether preservation occurs than on when and in what manner preservation decisions are made and on to whom their costs and benefits are distributed. On this basis, this study proposed a zone-differentiated strategy for Pungnaptoseong. In the preservation zone, it emphasized strategic acquisition, the construction of a museum, and a layered interpretive strategy combining, where feasible, controlled exposure of surviving wall fabric with landscape, model-based, and digital visualization to address the invisibility of the buried heritage. In the management zone, where residential occupation continues, it proposed commerce-linked preservation premised on in situ preservation as a policy hypothesis for converting regulatory burdens into resources for the locality’s economic and social sustainability.