Seoul's month-long garden show inspires through design

During its annual garden show, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will showcase dozens of botanical works to offer more green spaces and views to Seoulites.

Visitors look around a garden exhibition called Seoul Garden Show held in Haneul Park in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Sunday. The event will showcase 40 different botanical works through Nov. 15. [YONHAP]

During its annual garden show, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will showcase dozens of botanical works to offer more green spaces and views to Seoulites.

This year’s Seoul Garden Show has been underway at Haneul Park in World Cup Park in Sangam-dong, western Seoul, since Friday under the theme of “wind, grass and garden.”

The Seoul Garden Show began in 2015 to create gardens in outdated parks and offer appreciative landscapes to people, according to the city government.

The garden show this year will run through Nov. 15.

In previous years, the event lasted for only a week.

The show’s main programs, inviting visitors to participate in garden-related activities, such as reading books on gardens and plants in the library at the event site, will end this Thursday.

Visitors can also purchase gardening tools through Thursday at the so-called all-in-one garden center.

Even after the main programs end, visitors can still look at 40 different garden pieces created by experts, students and residents through Nov. 15.

Jo Yong-jun's Sound Garden, a circular platform that allows visitors to appreciate the view, is one of the works displayed at the 2023 Seoul Garden Show in Haneul Park, western Seoul. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

Visitors to the park will find a round platform with a diameter of 9 meters (30 feet) surrounded by silver grass.

Jo Yong-jun, the head of Seoul-based landscape design company CA Design, named the area the Sound Garden. He visualized compact discs (CDs) and vinyl records when creating the structure.

Jo is also the winner of last year’s Seoul Landscape Awards.

The designer developed an application to merge the sounds of Haneul Park, such as the wind, and let visitors listen to the audio while on the platform.

Seven other gardens by experts, about 100 square meters (1,070 square feet) each, can be found at the park. The botanical works were selected among 80 pieces submitted in a competition to be displayed at this year’s garden show.

The selected pieces include Choi Dam-hui and Kim Seon-woo’s Fluid Geometry, which expresses the direction of winds geometrically.

Dive into Wind Garden by Park Ah-reum and Jo Ara features a swimming pool-like garden.

Some 20 gardens created by students and residents will be showcased at the venue.

The annual event is part of the city government’s efforts to create more green spaces in the jam-packed capital.

“As more than half of housing facilities in Seoul are apartment complexes, green spaces such as gardens have become a dream for many,” Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said during the show’s opening ceremony on Friday.

“The city government’s goal is to create more such green spaces and let people access them more easily.”

The Seoul mayor had earlier announced plans for the “Garden City Seoul” initiative in May to create extensive gardens in multiple areas, including Songhyeon-dong in downtown Seoul.

According to the city government, the Seoul Garden Show will be expanded globally next year, inviting overseas participants. It plans to host the “international” garden show at Ttukseom Hangang Park in Gwangjin District, eastern Seoul, next year.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]