Busan Tower

Busan Tower was constructed in 1973 to eliminate the memory about Japanese occupation and praise with “a symbol of development and to pray the prosperity and peace of Busan.40years later now, Korean Became one of the strongest economy of the world. It is a time for Korean people to find a new meaning of the Busan tower for the future.With the increasing awareness of global environmental crisis, Korean became one of the pioneer country to search for the new way to develope a sustainable approach in harmony with the environment of our planet.As Korean ancient wisdom suggested in the meaning of Korean national flag, a white background, represents peace and purity, The circle in the middle is derived from the philosophy of yin and yang and represents the balance of the universe. The blue section represents the negative cosmic forces, and the red section represents the opposing positive cosmic forces. The trigrams together represent the principle of movement and harmony.To recall the origin of the nature of the Yongdusan Park in the ancient time, we recover the top of the hill by an “atmosphere garden”.First we rearrange some of the existing program to keep the park updated with the prevailing use both for the tourists and local citizens. We demolish the existing exhibition hall which block the view of the Busan tower on the ground level. Instead, we create a terraced garden in front of the tower, let the base of the tower to be viewed immediately when visitor arrive the central park. four white terraced garden scatters around a center entrance. on top of them is used to show traditional Korean bonsai plantation and sculpture. Under them are used as the exhibition hall,
above this garden, there is a white steel structure which is named “atmosphere”. It is a back ground for the Busan tower and Palgakjeong, to guard them in serenity. it also highlight the Busan tower by let it break through the “atmosphere”. At the top of this atmosphere is a new observation deck right in the middle between the ground level and top of the tower. Visitor has more choices and more space to enjoy the over view of Busan and we can utilized the existing lift of Busan tower to circulate the viewers. In the meantime visitor can slowly getting down by curved steps around the inside of shell of atmosphere structure.
At daytime, the atmosphere provides the garden a mild shadow to protect people from extreme weather. The semi opened structure show the gesture to welcome people around the world. At night, the led lighted mesh give a milky light to be viewed by the people both in the park and from the neighborhood of the city. The every changing image of the atmosphere sending mood of the time to celebrate with the people in the Busan on the occasion of special events. This new “atmosphere” together with the terraced garden, preserve the historical site, house the new culture event and providing more nature landscape, it will become the symbol of Busan city for her embracement of the old and new, symbolisms of the human and nature.