Apartment Speculations in Ancient Rome?
Explore the History of Apartment in the World
(Visit the Original Post : http://blog.naver.com/gico12/20171116246)

I happened to come across an interesting photo, a black and white image of a farmer plowing his field using an ox-plow in front of a shanty village. The farmer was wearing a pair of cotton work gloves and a jumper, which suggests a view in a farming village decades ago. But, as I looked at the background, there were apartment buildings under constructions, of which the skeletons of reinforced concrete structures were already rising high up into the skyline, closing to its completion. The photo must have been taken somewhere in Korea, during those days when apartments were first introduced into the landscapes of our cities. The title of the photo was ´Plowing in Apgujeong,´ taken in 1978. (Visit Seoul Photo Festival 2012 website to view the photo image) This is the inspiration place of the recent song released by the famous comedian, Jaeseok Ryu and singer Jeok Lee, titled ´Apgujeong Nalari (a Hustler in Apgujeong.)´ Yes. The setting of the photo is Apgujeong as we now know. This single photo gave me the inspiration to prepare this post. When, where, and why people first started to build apartments? Let us explore the exciting world of apartments.

Apartment Speculations in Ancient Rome?

The origin of apartments goes all the way back to Ancient Rome. At that time, there were residential buildings within the city boundary, rising 6 to 7 stories above the ground. There were shops for the citizens on the ground floors of those buildings, while the second floor and above were used for residential purposes, just like the way it is with the commercial-residential buildings today. Those buildings were called ´insular,´ the plural form of ´insulae,´ meaning islands. 

A View of Insular / Source: Buffalo Univ. Website, U.S.A.

A Sectioned View of Insular / Source: Site Map for MMDTKW

nsular / Source: JF Bradu

We saw our share of apartment speculation in Korea like buying the apartment in low prices and selling them in much higher prices for gains, or exploiting the tenants with murderous rents. Same drills in Ancient Rome, it seems, as one might call it ‘insular speculations.’ The rich built insular buildings at low costs and leased them to the poor with unforgiving rents. Insular were compound residents like apartments of today, meaning a considerable amounts of gains from the rents per each building. Since the buildings were built at costs as low as possible, fires, and other quality issues of the buildings were common during those days. Emperor Nero, as a result, introduced the laws on construction of insular, which you might find very interesting. The laws required the buildings to be separated by a space no less than 30 feet, install verandas to facilitate evacuation in case of fire, and the city blocks were required to have dedicated access roads for fire fighters as well. You may find these provisions familiar, as they are still in effect in modern laws in the 21st century. 

Produced for the industrial revolution, workers apartment

While the origin of the apartments is traced back to the days of Roman Empire, the modern apartments as we know them first came into the picture in the 19th century UK. The Industrial Revolution caused a good number of farmers to move to the ´industrialized´ cities, and many people came to the city to work in factories with their families, dreaming of a better life and making good money. A large number of them populated the cities over a very short amount of time and the population density exploded. Urbanizing the poor people became a serious issue, as the incomers were added to the existing factory workers. The ultimate form of poor residences, a single room in the basement, first appeared during those days. The UK government came up with a solution to provide quality living places for those people, which was the origin of the modern apartments.

Apartments for Workers during Industrial Revolution / Source: The Charnel-House

The apartments during the Industrial Revolution were characterized by units with 1 to 2 rooms, with shared restrooms and laundry rooms in the hallways, much like Goshiwon´s in Korea these days. These apartments improved in their layouts over time to become modern apartments, with exclusive restrooms and laundry rooms per unit, air ducts and transom windows.

When Was the Word ´Apartment´ First Used in Korea?

Now it is time to look at the history of apartments in Korea. The first ever apartment built in Korea was Jongam Apartment, built by a private contractor in 1958. That was the very first building which was officially named as an ´apartment´ in the history of Korea. Jongam Apartment was a compound of 51 square-meters residential units located next to Korea Univ. in Jongam-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Korea. The President Syngman Rhee attended the Completion Ceremony of the apartment. 
 

Jongam Apartment / Source: Navercast

The first apartment complex was built in 1964, which was Mapo Apartment constructed by Housing Corporation (currently LH Corporation) in Dowha-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. It was this Mapo Apartment that actually opened the door of apartment era in Korea, because, unlike the days of Jongam Apartment when the term ´apartment´ itself was very barely heard of, the concept of apartment was wide-spread among the public. 

An Aerial View of Mapo Apartment / Source: Naver Blog

After Mapo Apartment, a good number of small and large apartment complexes were built during the 2nd Economic Development 5-Year Plan, which lasted from 1967 to 1971, in many areas in Korea, especially in Seoul. Since the late 1980s´ the building of apartment complexes have spread over to other cities like Seongnam, Goyang, and Anyang, and further down to other cities and provinces including small counties and districts. 

Today, apartments are the most commonly found mode of residence in Korea. Once of the greatest hits songs in Korea, ´The Apart´ is still loved and sung by many in Noraebangs (Korean Karaoke.) A part of the song goes like this;

Crossing the bridges under the starry night,
and passing through the fields of windy reeds
to your apartment waiting for me at all times

I think the words of this song represent the concept of environment-friendliness, which is the theme of the apartment in the future. Smart technologies in the residential environments do matter these days, but it seems people like to have environment-friendly apartments beyond the starry bridges and windy fields of reeds. Maybe, in the future, people will look back and call the year 2012 as the beginning of the environment-friendly apartments.