Bibliographic Information
Shin, Ye-Kyeong. “Axes of Urban Growth: Urbanization and Railway Stations in Seoul, 1900–1945.” Planning Perspectives, 28(4), pp. 628–639, November 2013.
ISSN 0266-5433 / eISSN 1466-4518
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2013.828446
Research Summary
This study examines how the introduction of railways and trams influenced Seoul’s urbanization and spatial transformation between 1900 and 1945, focusing on the role of railway stations. Seoul’s traditional structure, based for more than five centuries on the walled city and Seongjeo Simni, changed substantially when colonial Gyeongseong was reorganized as a modern capital and new transport infrastructure was introduced.
Stations built at major locations handled passenger movement and freight distribution while connecting the city to the peninsula-wide railway network. As architectural expressions of international modernization and nodes of emerging urban functions, they strongly influenced the direction of urban expansion and the formation of Seoul’s growth axes.