Seoul (station)

Brief information

Seoul Station reads like a railway station that was continually expanded to handle growing traffic: from an early wooden station to the coexistence of the old building and the new station, opened together with the launch of the KTX high-speed system. What matters is not only the railway itself, but also the fact that metro stations are located beneath the main station: together they form a major transfer hub in the city center.

Today, KTX high-speed trains and other trains depart from here, including to Busan, Gwangju, and Mokpo. That is why the place is interesting not as a standalone building, but as a hub where long-distance lines, the city metro, and several generations of station architecture have been brought together at one point.

What to notice right away

It makes sense to compare the old Seoul Station building with the new station next to it: the source text directly links the new building to the launch of KTX, while describing the old one as a preserved structure from the 1920s. This helps show how high-speed rail infrastructure was added to the historic station without reducing the place to a single facade.

The South and West Wings show the postwar expansion of the station: one appeared in 1957, the other in 1969. The passage to the West Wing was completed later, and this connection explains why the station is arranged not as a single monolith, but as a set of attached parts. Another modern detail is the platform screen doors: they remind us that what matters here is not only the history of the buildings, but also the everyday operation of a transfer hub.