HYPER HYPO SEOUL / URBANISM OF DEATH
URBANISM OF DEATH Urban Ecology of the Funeral Service Industry and the Problem of “Solitude” Deaths
In South Korea “death” is a major industry. In 2019 funeral service industry in Korea was approximately 5 billion US dollars and with the continuous increase in the aging population, the market growth is estimated to increase exponentially. The industry covers everything from funeral services to funaeral service financing, insurance, burials, crematoriums and burial ground, charnel house purchase, rentals and in 2015 the average cost of a funeral service was over 13million won(approximately 13,000 USD) per death. Funerals are the number one revenue source of major hospitals. In the past, ‘Sangjangrye(funeral)’ were practiced at home, or at a neighborhood funeral home. But now no matter the location of death, funerals are performed at major hospitals around the city. This is for ease of access for the visitors paying tribute, but also functions as a status symbol for the deceased and the family. Seoul’s crematoriums, charnel houses, and burial grounds which are scattered throughout the metropolitan area are also status symbols where location and size are determined based on how much you can afford. Meanwhile, the number of unattended “solitude” deaths are increasing due to the increase of single-person households of seniors who live alone. But due to the high cost of funerals, many bereaved families give up the body acquisition. In 2020, the number of unattended deaths was 2,880 which more than doubled since 2016 and 70.69% of them had known family members who decided not to claim the bodies. Despite the increase in “solitude” deaths, support and funding for public funeral services is nowhere near sufficient. Death related facilities are highly avoided in Korea and so despite the increasing need of low cost public funeral related facilities within the city, NIMBY oppositions make such public infrastructure difficult. Those who cannot afford the high cost of private funeral services and charnel house fees are left without any possibility of a “decent” death. We investigate the spatial ramification of the Korean funeral culture to identify the urban networks of the funeral industry. Through the analysis of the existing system, we hope to propose alternative strategies of spatial co-existence of the living and the dead to allow a “decent” death to the most underserved people in our community.
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Seoul National University Graduate School of Environmental Studies Dept. of Landscape Architecture + Graduate Program for Urban Design URBAN TERRAINS LAB / Program Director, Yehre Suh / Investigator, Yonghun Kim
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