Multi Contents Center

I'm in Seoul, and yesterday afternoon, on an frigid day (somehow as soon as the sun starts to drop here, the temperature seems to plunge), I boarded a minivan to visit the construction site of the Multi Contents Center. DMC (Digital Media City) has come along since I last saw it, almost three years ago, but apparently the recession has inhibited its blossoming into the high-tech futurescape it was conceived to be.

Progress on the building, on the other hand, was impressive. Korean construction crews always inspire confidence in me -- they beam with capability and efficiency. (They look a bit like SWAT teams, too, each guy wearing a dayglo harness with a lifeline that they can clip onto nearby rails for safety.)

They are up to the 12th floor. We rode the lift to the top. Here's the view.

In the foreground is the E2-3 site, for which we won the competition a few years ago, but the project was put on hold and eventually restarted with a less-ambitious design. Beyond that is the site for the Landmark Tower, slated to be the 3rd tallest tower in the world. Officially they have broken ground, but at the moment it seems better suited for planting cabbage. Here's how DMC is supposed to look: