Jeongdong Observatory Above Deoksugung

From Exit 12 of City Hall Station — The Door into a City Building

About 185 m from Exit 12 of City Hall Station (Lines 1 and 2) (Seoul tourism listing).

Exit 12 of City Hall Station leads out towards Deoksugung-gil. It is the opposite side from Exit 2, where the first piece came out in front of Daehanmun. The Seoul tourism listing gives 185 m from here to the observatory; the map-route calculation gives 146 m, two minutes. Either way, it is a distance you cover without crossing a road. Find on map

The Seosomun Building is an annex of Seoul City Hall. Its front entrance is that of a government building, with nothing special about it. Elena pauses there for a moment. The three places so far were all “outside”: a wall, a museum forecourt, a street. Today, for the first time, she goes inside a building — and not a tourist site, but a city hall annex.

People going to the observatory take the visitors’ lift, No. 3. The Seoul tourism listing says so. In a city annex there are several lifts, and the one set aside for visitors is that one. Elena checks the number and stands in front of Lift 3.

Inside, she presses 13. Across the three pieces, the only height Elena has climbed is the gentle rise of Jeongdong-gil. Today she goes up thirteen floors in one go. Between the doors closing and opening she passes above all three roads.

The doors open onto the observatory. There is a café inside, with a long bar table set along the windows. Elena does not go straight to the glass. She looks at the wall first, because old photographs are hanging on it.

Old Photographs on the Café Wall — Jeongdong Before the Screen

Jeongdong Observatory is on the 13th floor of the Seosomun Building of Seoul City Hall. It has a café where you can look down over the Deoksugung area with a drink; photographs of old Jeongdong hang on the café walls. Bar tables line the windows, and on clear days the view reaches Gwanghwamun and the former presidential residence (Seoul tourism listing, April 2026).

On the café walls hang photographs of old Jeongdong. Which year, which spot — that differs from picture to picture, and this piece does not say. What Elena registers is not so much what the photographs show as the fact that they are there. Jeongdong was being photographed long before it appeared on any screen. Find on map

Elena’s way has always been to hold the screen up against the real thing. In the stone wall piece it was the height of the wall; in the museum piece the front of the building; in the Jeongdong-gil piece the age of the bricks. Today there is one more thing to compare against: photographs older than the screen. A Jeongdong older than the real one.

Standing in front of the photographs, Elena does not take out her notebook. Not because there is nothing to note, but because the facts of the photographs belong to the labels beside them. Instead she looks to see whether the roads in the pictures are the roads she has just walked. There is a wall, a road, a building. Which is which, she decides to check at the window.

Before the window, one more thing: the café’s drinks. Coffee, ades, tea. Elena does not order today. Taking a window seat while one is free comes first, she thinks.

The bar table runs along the glass. The listing says the window seats are popular. Elena looks for an empty seat there first, and takes it. In front of her, glass; beyond the glass, the Deoksugung area.

At the Window — Counting Three Roads from Above

From Chungdong First Methodist Church to Jeongdong Observatory (Seosomun Building of Seoul City Hall) is about 340 m, roughly 4 minutes on foot

Outside the window is the Deoksugung area. The Seoul tourism listing says you can take in the whole palace area from here, and that on clear days the view reaches Gwanghwamun and the former presidential residence. Whether today is one of those days is for the weather to decide. What Elena looks for first is not the distant thing but the near one: the wall she walked in the first piece. Find on map

From above, the wall is a line. Walking beside it, the wall was a height — higher than the shoulder, higher than the eye — and up here it becomes a line with no thickness, wrapping the palace. Along that line runs the first piece’s road. Elena follows it with her eyes, from the front of Daehanmun to the corner by the museum.

The second piece’s museum sits a little above the end of the wall. From the side it was a front on a slope; from above it is a roof. Recognising by its roof a building she went to see for its front takes a moment. Elena does not touch the glass; she points only with her eyes.

The third piece’s Jeongdong-gil bends in behind the museum. From above, the road is a band of trees. The ginkgos stand on both sides, so the rows of trees show before the road itself does. The red-brick buildings are in between. Which is the church and which is the theatre can only be guessed from up here, by colour and size — and because it is a guess, no names are given here.

Having picked out all three, what Elena understands is this. On screen the three roads were separate: the wall scene, the brick scene, the ginkgo-leaf scene. From above they are one continuous line. The spot that, while walking, was called “the place of the next piece” is, from above, simply the next corner.

She opens her notebook. What she writes down is not a fact but an order: wall, roof, band of trees. Rewrite the titles of the three pieces as they look from above, and that is what you get.

Back Down — Before Half Past Five

Weekdays 13:30–17:30, weekends 09:00–17:30 (last entry 17:20). Closed on public holidays that fall on weekdays. Visitors use the dedicated lift, No. 3 (Seoul tourism listing, April 2026).

The observatory closes at 17:30 on weekdays. At weekends it opens at 09:00 and closes at the same time, with last entry at 17:20; it is closed on public holidays that fall on weekdays. That is the Seoul tourism listing as of April 2026. Elena looks at her watch. She has been at the window longer than she thought. Find on map

Before getting up she looks out once more — this time not at the roads but at the light. As the afternoon sun leans west, the wall’s shadow lengthens. What felt like shade when she walked under the wall in the first piece is, from above, the thickness of the line the wall draws.

She leaves the café and stands in front of Lift 3. On the way up she passed above three pieces at once; on the way down it is the reverse. The doors open onto the ground floor, the front entrance, Deoksugung-gil. Her feet are back on the line she was looking down at.

Out of the front door, the road she was just looking down on returns to eye level. The wall is a height again, the trees are shade again. Walking towards Exit 12, Elena looks back once. From outside, there is no telling which window is the 13th-floor one.

The Jeongdong series leaves one more place for later: the inside of the palace, which for three pieces she only saw from outside. The next piece goes through Daehanmun and in.

Jeongdong from above was a scene that was never on screen. And what it showed was not something new, but that the three roads she had walked are joined into one. The wall became a line, the front became a roof, the road became a band of trees. Those three words are what Elena wrote in her notebook.

The screen gives scenes one by one. The walker strings them into an order; the person looking from above sees that order as a single line. That was the reason for walking Jeongdong four times.

(※ This article includes staged images created with AI.)