• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.117-132
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• 2019

The study examines the significance and limits of modern park planning by analyzing major planning documents of Gyeongseong in the Japanese colonial era. Among seven selected documents from 1925 to 1940, which show the contents related with park planning, documents of 1930 and 1940 presented the official park plan of Gyeongseong. By the 1920s, the park plan was not a major concern in urban planning of Gyeongseong; however, as the planning law as enacted in 1934, the park plan legally became a part of the official master planning process in the 1930s. In 1940, the most comprehensive park plan for Gyeongseong was published. In the beginning of modern urban planning, a park was mainly perceived as a sanitation utility. From the 1920s to the 1930s, the park planning system was significantly improved including systemic classification of parks, guideline development considering spatial planning, and introduction of a concept of infra-structural green space. Despite of the improvement in the park planning, the actual quantity of the overall green spaces barely changed and there was a huge discrepancy between the planning ideal and the reality. The Gyeongseong stadium was the only facility newly built in the 1920s, and only two parks were constructed in the 1930s. The plan to build 38 new parks in the 1930, and 140 in the 1940 was barely realized. However, there were efforts to improve parks and green spaces of Gyeongseong: Such as appropriating natural forest as parks, designating royal palaces as parks, and focusing on constructing smaller scale children's parks. Even though the ideal plan could not be fully implemented due to the war time situation and tight budget, the park system of Gyeongseong provided the framework of park planning of Seoul after the independence.