Overview
The cultural reserve base, surrounded by Maebongsan Mountain near the Seoul World Cup Stadium in Mapo-gu, is a cultural park where the Mapo Oil Reserve Base, a legacy of the industrial era when public access and use were strictly restricted, has now returned to the citizens through urban regeneration. After the 1973 oil crisis, the Mapo Oil Storage Base, which built five tanks in 1976~78 and stored 69.07 million liters of oil—enough for Seoul citizens to consume for about a month—was closed for safety reasons ahead of the 2002 World Cup. After more than ten years without finding a way to utilize it, it decided to transform it into a cultural storage base through a citizen idea contest in 2013. The tanks that stored oil at the time shifted from oil to cultural tanks that created new cultures every day. The original five tanks were transformed into open cultural spaces, and T6, created by reusing the steel plates from dismantled tanks, became a community space for citizens. The previously vacant outdoor space was transformed into a cultural playground where children could play, and the remaining forest on the site was preserved as much as possible, with various types of flowers and trees planted to create a park. A space that once represented the era of industrialization centered on oil and construction has been transformed into an ecological cultural park centered on eco-friendliness, regeneration, and culture. Unique cultural events such as markets, exhibitions, performances, and workshops are being held.