The Value and Utilization of Modern Cultural Heritage in Korea

Cultural heritage is a valuable cultural resource that embodies the wisdom and experience of humankind accumulated over centuries, but industrialization and urbanization have made it difficult to ensure its preservation. Because of the irreversible nature of cultural heritage, which once gone can never be restored, countries are implementing coercive legal measures to prevent damage and preserve it in its original form. At the same time, in Korea, as in other countries, the scope of cultural heritage policy is expanding from the preservation of historic relics to preserving and utilizing cultural heritage in a broader sense—including industrial facilities and products, modernist art, and popular culture—from modern as well as pre-modern times. A detailed case study is presented of the utilization of colonial-era government buildings in the city of Busan for the purpose of urban regeneration and tourism development, an effort that involves the repositioning of what in the past was seen as “negative heritage” from the period of Japanese rule and the tragedy of the Korean War into a resource for regional economic revitalization.