From zeilenbau slabs to community-building clusters. The contribution of Seoul to the planning of mass housing estates, 1962–2008

More than half of the population of Seoul lives today in mass housing estates due to the housing policies initiated by the South Korean developmental regime. This paper aims to assert the degree of typomorphological innovation introduced by the large-scale construction of mass housing in the capital during the second half of the twentieth century to situate their contribution to modern housing. Twelve case studies have been redrawn according to eight morphological categories and compared through a timeline. The study period is structured in four phases to contextualize the cases with the socio-political background and broader housing architecture and planning developments. Stephen V. Ward’s typology of diffusion of modern planning concepts has been adopted as a conceptual framework to evaluate the degree of innovation. The research shows how site planning strategies based on parallel rows of housing blocks were consolidated as the most common morphology in the 1970s under the leadership of the public housing authority. A brief but intense period of innovation followed during the 1980s featuring clusters catering to community-building agendas. Nonetheless, the shift towards the private sector at the end of the decade curtailed housing innovation, and original solutions developed earlier were standardized by the market.