The City That Uncovered a River

In the middle of Seoul, there is a river that spent half a century in the dark. The Cheonggyecheon stream once ran openly through the heart of the city, but in the decades after the war it became polluted and crowded with shacks, so the city buried it. Concrete went over the water, and by the 1970s an elevated highway roared above the concrete. The river became a rumour underneath the traffic.

U središtu Seula nalazi se rijeka koja je pola stoljeća provela u mraku. Potok Cheonggyecheon nekoć je otvoreno tekao kroz srce grada, no u desetljećima nakon rata postao je zagađen i pretrpan barakama, pa ga je grad zatrpao. Beton je prekrio vodu, a do sedamdesetih godina iznad betona je tutnjala nadzemna autocesta. Rijeka je postala glasina ispod prometa.

Then, in 2003, Seoul did something that seemed almost backwards: it began demolishing the highway to dig the river back out. Engineers removed the roads, restored almost six kilometres of the stream, and built walkways, stepping stones, and bridges along the banks. Critics said the city was destroying useful infrastructure for a decoration. The project pressed on anyway, and the stream reopened in 2005.

Zatim je, dvije tisuće treće godine, Seul učinio nešto što se činilo gotovo unatražno: počeo je rušiti autocestu kako bi ponovno iskopao rijeku. Inženjeri su uklonili ceste, obnovili gotovo šest kilometara potoka i uz obale izgradili šetnice, kamenje za prelazak i mostove. Kritičari su tvrdili da grad uništava korisnu infrastrukturu radi ukrasa. Projekt se ipak nastavio, a potok je ponovno otvoren dvije tisuće pete godine.

The results surprised even the optimists. Fish, birds, and insects returned to water that had not seen sunlight in fifty years. Summer temperatures along the stream measured several degrees cooler than on the parallel roads nearby, a natural air conditioner running through the densest part of the city. Today millions of people walk the banks every year, many of them too young to remember that their favourite place in Seoul was once the underside of a highway.

Rezultati su iznenadili čak i optimiste. Ribe, ptice i kukci vratili su se u vodu koja pedeset godina nije vidjela sunčevu svjetlost. Ljeti su temperature uz potok bile izmjerene nekoliko stupnjeva niže nego na paralelnim cestama u blizini, poput prirodne klimatizacije koja prolazi kroz najgušći dio grada. Danas milijuni ljudi svake godine šeću obalama, mnogi od njih premladi da bi se sjećali kako je njihovo omiljeno mjesto u Seulu nekoć bilo donja strana autoceste.