Passengers ride escalators at Noksapyeong Station in Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rin
The notes of Chopin’s Nocturne drifted up through the deep underground air inside Noksapyeong Station in Seoul on Monday afternoon this week, echoing off curved walls and bouncing against translucent glass banisters. A commuter sat at an upright piano in the concourse — one of the station’s cultural fixtures — and for a few unannounced minutes, the cavernous hall felt less like a subway station and more like a dream that missed its exit.
That is precisely the effect Noksapyeong Station tends to have on people. Even after 25 years of operation, Seoul Metro Line 6’s most architecturally audacious station can still make passengers pause mid-escalator, compelled to look up, down or sideways, at a structure that seems more like a science-fiction film set than a city subway system.
In a sense, it was built for a world that never quite materialized.
Escalators connect floors of Noksapyeong Station's cylindrical atrium in Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rin
When Seoul began constructing its sixth metro line in the mid-1990s, planners had a reason to dream big around the Noksapyeong area. Officials were considering relocating City Hall to the site of the current Yongsan District Office, a five-minute walk from the new station.
To serve the future City Hall Station with proper dignity, planning documents indicated the new metro line was supposed to have a stop at Noksapyeong, making it a major transit hub at the heart of capital.
The result was a station built to a scale that its actual surroundings could not justify. Builders carved five levels into the Earth to a depth of 34.22 meters, making it one of the city's deepest stations. The cylindrical atrium was given a 21-meter-diameter glass dome at street level, allowing natural light to cascade down four underground floors.
Long escalators were installed to carry passengers through the full vertical journey, each ride offering a slowly shifting panoramic view of illuminated walls, steel geometry and depth — a different composition at every meter of descent.
A commuter looks up to take a photo of Noksapyeong Station's glass domed ceiling in Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rin
Source: Korea Times News
