Seoul City Hall

Seoul City Hall
Seoul City Hall
Korean name
Hangul	서울특별시 청사
Hanja	서울特別市 廳舍
Revised Romanization	Seoul teukbyeolsi cheongsa
McCune–Reischauer	Sŏul Tukbyŏlsi ch'ŏngsa

Seoul City Hall is a governmental building for the Seoul Metropolitan Government in South Korea, in charge of the administrative affairs of Seoul. It is located in Taepyeongno, Jung-gu, the heart of Seoul. It's located next to City Hall Station (Seoul) on Seoul Subway Line 1. In front of the city hall is Seoul Plaza (Korean: 서울광장).

The building was first built by the Governor-General of Korea in 1926. After liberation in 1945, it served as the city's local government. The city hall was expanded 6 times. The main building was designated a registered cultural property of the Republic of Korea. The North building was built in 1962 and the new building in 1986. Both were demolished in 2006 to make way for a new city hall construction.

A large digital clock for the building was installed in 1975, and replaced with an analogue counterpart when Lee Myung-bak was mayor of Seoul.

There was a competition for a new city hall. The jury awarded the prize to Yoo Kerl of iArc on February 18, 2008. Yoo said, "Major keywords for designing the new building are traditions, citizens, future. I analysed low-rise horizontal elements, curvaceousness and shades of leaves in our traditional architectural characteristics, and I applied these to the design so I can recall comfortable feelings of old things."

See also

• List of government agencies of South Korea

External links

• Seoul Metropolitan Government(Korean site)
• Skyscrapercity