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The Blue House Relocation Saga

각하 (Your Excellency)

Going to the Blue House Like This (이렇게 된 이상 청와대로 간다, 2021) 

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The Blue House, also known as Cheong Wa Dae (청와대), is the official residence of the President of South Korea. It is currently located in the Jongro-gu district of north central Seoul (서울 종로구). Recently, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol (윤석열) has stirred controversy by pledging to move the location of the Blue House when he takes over as President in May.

The origin of the Blue House site (Korean link) dates back to the Goryeo (고려) dynasty. According to Doseonbigi (도선비기), a book on feng shui, Gaesung (개성), the capital of Goryeo (located in North Korea today), lost its “energy” to Hanyang (한양), the old name of Seoul.

During the rule of King Sukjong (숙종) of Goryeo, an argument arose as to whether the capital should thus be moved to Hanyang. Following the feng shui theory, the new Namgyeong (남경) Palace was built in Hanyang and completed in 1104. However, things ended there and no move was actually made.

The site of Namgyeong Palace later became the backyard of Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) Palace during the Joseon Dynasty (조선시대) and is now Cheong Wa Dae.

During the Joseon Dynasty, the capital was finally moved to Hanyang, and that is when Gyeongbokgung Palace was erected. It was originally intended to be built on the site of Namgyeong Palace, but as the site was too narrow, the new palace was built further south and the site of Namgyeong Palace was turned into the backyard of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Gyeongbokgung Palace was then burnt down during the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592 and left untouched for a while after that. Later, Heungseon Daewongun (흥선대원군) rebuilt Gyeongbokgung Palace during the reign of his son, King Gojong (고종), and named it Gyeongmudae (경무대) in 1868.

Gyeongmudae had in fact been the name of the site surrounding Gyeongbokgung Palace since the Joseon Dynasty. It contained a number of buildings and covered a large area. Here, national exams were held in the past with the attendance of the king, and ceremonies and concerts were performed.

During the Japanese occupation, Japan demolished the buildings and turned the area into parks. In 1937, the area was selected as the site of the official residence of the governor-general of Joseon and the government office was established and covered with imported blue tiles. The blue roof later gave the building the name “Cheong Wa Dae” (청와대): “cheong” means “blue,” “wa” means “roof,” and “dae” means house.

After Korea became independent following World War II, it was used as the official residence of U.S. Army Lieutenant General John Haji, commander of the U.S. military government. When the Korean government was established in 1948, President Syngman Rhee (이승만) kept using it as the official residence of the president.

After the April 19 Revolution, a growing sense of antipathy toward the Liberal Party's (자유당) government had led to widespread resistance to the name Gyeongmudae, which reminded people of the Japanese occupation.

In response, Kim Young-sam (김영삼), who was a crucial member of the opposition party at the time, proposed two alternative names to then-President Yoon Bo-sun (윤보선): "Hwa Young Dae" (화령대), one of the names that had been proposed for the Joseon kingdom when the country was newly founded, and "Cheong Wa Dae." Yoon chose Cheong Wa Dae, the Blue House, as an analogy to the White House in the United States.

With the inauguration of the Park Chung-hee (박정희) administration, Cheong Wa Dae was renovated and expanded. In addition, the old main building of the Blue House was remodeled during Chun Doo-hwan's (전두환) time, and the new main building, official residence, and press center, the Chunchu Pavilion (춘추관), were newly built during Roh Tae-woo's (노태우) time, when it took on today’s shape.

When President Kim Young-sam took office in 1993, He demolished the former main building as he considered it a remnant of the Japanese occupation. He also opened the road in front of the Blue House and Inwangsan (인왕산) mountain behind it to the citizens.

The pledge to relocate the president’s office (Korean link) has been made by previous presidents as well, in the spirit of moving away from the authoritative structures of the past and towards a more democratic style of government. Several former presidents have pledged to leave the presidential office and communicate more actively with the people, but all failed to implement it because they could not find a suitable alternative location.

Former President Kim Young-sam was the first to announce the relocation of this office. Instead, he eventually decided to just give people access to the previously restricted road in front of the Blue House and Inwangsan on the first day of his inauguration on February 25, 1993. His intention was to make the citizens feel more comfortable by allowing them to freely pass in front of the Blue House, which felt in line with the era of the civilian government.

 

In March of the same year, two weeks after his inauguration, Kim ordered the removal of 12 Cheong Wa Dae-owned houses in Gangjeong-dong (궁정동) and Samcheong-dong (삼청동), saying, "We will demolish the safe houses that were the birthplace of authoritarian secret politics." Mugunghwa Garden (무궁화 공원), a civic park, was built on the site of one of the houses in Gangjeong-dong. The safe house in Gangjeong-dong is where former President Park Chung-hee was shot and killed by Kim Jae-kyu (김재규), then head of the Central Intelligence Agency, on October 26, 1979.

In 1998, former President Kim Dae-jung (김대중) also pushed for the establishment of offices at the Seoul Government Complex in Gwanghwamun (광화문) and the Second Government Complex in Gwacheon (과천), but stopped the endeavor due to security and cost issues. Instead, he broke the custom of presiding over Cabinet meetings at the Blue House and moved them to the Government Complex. Kim opened the Chilgung (칠궁) Palace (a shrine dedicated to the seven mothers of Joseon kings) to the public. The scope of admission to the Blue House was also expanded from group visitors to individuals as well as foreign visitors.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun (노무현) was the most active in his pledge to relocate the Blue House. Roh, who stated his intention to relocate the administrative capital in 2002, announced to moved all government ministries, including the Blue House, to Sejong City (세종), but his plan was suspended in 2004 following a controversial ruling by the Constitutional Court calling the move away from the capital Seoul “unconstitutional”. However, Roh opened Sinmu Gate (신무문), the only private gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace, and a section of the Bugaksan (북악산) Fortess Road from Changuimun (창의문) Gate to Waryong Park (와룡공원) to the public for the first time.

President Moon Jae-In (문재인) also pledged to become a president that is “closer to the public” when he was a candidate. After his election, President Moon presented full-fledged plans to relocate his office, including appointing Yoo Hong-joon (윤홍준), a chair professor at Myongji (명지대학교) University, as a preparatory advisor to make the era of the “Gwanghwamun Presidency” reality. However, Professor Yoo declared in January 2019, "We conclude that we could not find any alternative sites for major functions other than the office, such as the Blue House's guesthouse, main building, and heliport, near Gwanghwamun." Instead, immediately after taking office, President Moon decided to open the road in front of the Blue House, which had been temporarily opened since June 2017, for 24 hours every day. He also implemented measures to open the trail on the north side of the Bugaksan Fortress.

The architectural structure of the Blue House has always been an issue. In fact, the presidential complex was ranked as the seventh worst contemporary architecture (Korean link) in Korea. The main hall, where the president’s office is located, has not been changed since its first opening in 1991. It has been said that the structure was designed to highlight the authority and dignity of the president rather than enable communication. In addition, the president’s office and other departments are quite distant from one another, because they are located in different buildings within the Blue House complex. As this diagram below shows, it takes a long time to move from one building to another.

As a result, communication has always been an issue for all presidents in Korea, which is reflected in the attempts of many former presidents to move out of the Blue House and work at a different location. However, they all failed due to the above-mentioned security and financial issues. 

This diagram shows a structural comparison between the Main Hall of the Blue House and the West Wing of The White House. In the White House, which the Korean presidential complex’s name was modeled after, the offices in the West Wing are attached to one another, while those in the Blue House are located in separate buildings, which is why it takes much longer for staff to get to the president’s office for daily tasks. For this reason, President Moon Jae-in has mainly worked at Wimin Hall (위민관) when assuming his duties, because he did not like being distant from his secretaries.  

President-elect Yoon announced to finally implement the move of the Blue House to a new location, for which he chose The Ministry of Defense Building (국방부) in the Yongsan-gu district of Seoul (용산구). This has caused controversies due to the significance of the building itself, the risk of the compromise of national security, and the cost of the project. High-rise buildings surrounding a location where the President will often be found present the potential for deadly acts of terrorism.

Yoon has also been accused of pushing ahead with the move because he has been told that the original site of the Blue House has “bad feng shui”—which, ironically, was how Seoul became the capital of modern Korea in the first place. 

It turns out that it costs ₩49 billion (Korean link) to relocate the presidential office and an additional ₩100 billion to relocate the central military command including the reinstallment of secured networks. Moving the presidential office to the previously also considered Foreign Ministry building or Government Complex at Gwanghwamun was eventually ruled out due to security, space, and budget reasons.

So if the relocation is not plausible, what else could be done? An architect named Yoo Hyun-joon had an idea in his Youtube video. According to him, instead of a costly relocation, remodeling could be an alternative option. It has always been pointed out that the Blue House’s architectural structure hinders active interaction between the president and their staff. By reflecting modern architectural trends and creating an efficient office environment, an upgrade of the Blue House could be done in a more budget-friendly and time-efficient manner. Yoon further said, “When I took a visit to the Blue House in person, I saw the president’s office and it was not quite a favorable place to work in. Structural improvements surely can make this place better.”

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