Urban morphology and commercial architecture on namdaemun street in seoul

This paper is about the transformation of urban morphology and the emergence of new commercial architecture in Seoul during the Japanese colonial occupation period. While Japanese administrators used urban planning as a most decisive tool for colonial management, Japanese retailers introduced the department store for expanding their market territory. The intent of this paper is three-fold: first, to examine the urban morphology of a new business and commercial centre in Seoul, review the Japanese urban planning intervention, and describe the spatial distributions of new types of commercial architecture; second, to look specifically at the spatial configurations of the department stores and compare them with those in Tokyo; and finally to discuss how these commercial buildings had significant spatial impact on the development of architecture and urbanism in Seoul.