Namdaemun burns ! Sad day

Namdaemun was off-limit to the public about 3 years ago when then mayor of Seoul, MB Lee, decided to open it to the public. And to top if off it was guarded by just two men and no fire/smoke detector and was insured for USD 42,254 which is joke.
Now president-elected MB Lee is asking Korean people to donate money in order to build it. I'd say just ask MP to donate USD 100,000 each and with around 280(?) MP there should more than enough money to build one or two...

 

I find the cultural differences fascinating. The comment made by one person regarding feeling ashamed because they had failed the cultural heritage of their ancestors made me sit up and think!

Almost on a daily basis we Brits allow some of the least imaginative architects and town planners shit all over the 'cultural heritage' of our ancestors. We knock beautiful buildings down to shave 5 minutes off a motorway journey or to increase the flow of sad commuters from one part of various cities to another.

Do you know they even considered putting a by-pass UNDER Stonehenge? Not just 'What about.... no that's daft!' they did a feasibility study before someone pulled the plug.

It's such a shame we don't have a little more of that respect for not only our ancestors, but the elderly also in this country.

However, it sounds like this land dispute would have been easier & cheaper to replace than what's happened.

 

Actually, there was a good reason for it.

Stonehenge has a big road running by the side of it. Because of this there has been a combination of pollutants slowly destroying the stones and accidents occurring because people getting distracted, along with the beauty of the site spoiled somewhat. The intention to build an underground road was going to cut pollutants down by (IIRC) 70% in the area. Top archaeologists concurred with this idea.

On an interesting side note, however, if you get up close to the stones (which you can if you get privileged access to it) - you'll see that the stones are actually covered with 100+ year old graffiti carved into them from the days prior to it being cordoned off. It's purely that people have no real respect for cultural monuments.

A final note - did you know that there is huge amounts of archaeological finds buried underneath buildings (which has been unearthed, noted down and replaced by archaeologists) purely because they don't have enough space to store them anywhere? Unless they are something truly important, they get re-buried because places with the right facilities (such as the British Museum, etc.) are up to their ears in stuff?

 

The way the proposal was pitched to me was that it would have made little difference as they were going to have a 'Stonehenge' related shopping / tourist complex, with sliproads off the by-pass and a large carpark. It was going to be closer to the monument than it is currently. Your description is certainly more idyllic with low-noise and the impression that there are no cars visible in the landscape.

Didn't think there would be any real reduction in pollutants locally, witness the smoke that belches out of the Mont Blanc tunnel extraction system (for instance). You'd just be concentrating it's dispersal to strategically located vent systems which would have to be 'sympathetic' to the landscape.

As for the buried material. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Who exactly decides what is historically more important however? Is there a particular body or organisation? I think the system is England is different to here in Scotland as no building work is allowed to continue until the site has been very thoroughly investigated. Hence why in some Scottish cities there are empty, vacant spaces just sitting awaiting investigation and building permission.

 

Man, I agree with you bigtime. The same thing happens here a lot of times, and sometimes it makes me ashamed of being what I am. And that is a human being, living in a country, where archaelogical sites, and so forth. Gets a pile of faeces / fæces thrown on top of it. Because "we have to make way for the future". But if the future is a faeces thron structure. Then it is a sad future we are facing.