Korean Forest Garden, Namsan

Character

A visitor can move from a Damyang-inspired pond and bamboo grove to a Jeju-like moss garden and an Uljin-inspired pine landscape without leaving Namsan. Korean Forest Garden compresses those references into 30,000 square metres of one Seoul hillside

The details are specific. Jidang Garden reworks the pavilion-and-borrowed-scenery logic of traditional gardens with water and bamboo. Yeongji Garden takes Damyang’s Myeongokheon as its reference, pairing a pond with crape myrtle. The Moss Garden looks to Jeju’s gotjawal, while Pine Forest Garden builds on Namsan’s existing pines and the image of Uljin’s Geumgang pine forests

Nothing here is presented as a literal copy. The garden works by reducing distant landscapes to materials, planting types, water, shade and framed views that can survive on Namsan

The experience

From the entrance, a roughly 1.1-kilometre barefoot route passes an Eight Provinces pine collection and a washing station before continuing through bamboo, pond and planted garden rooms toward Namsan Maru. The sequence makes the regional references physical: the route changes underfoot and around the path instead of asking the visitor to decode an official taxonomy

Jidang Garden places a contemporary pavilion beside water and bamboo. Yeongji pairs a pond with crape myrtle. Pine Forest Garden keeps Namsan’s existing pines inside the composition rather than treating them as backdrop

Namsan Maru makes the sharpest break from the enclosed garden rooms. Its steel-grating floor and transparent railing keep the forest below visible while downtown Seoul opens beyond it

The garden is also young enough that growth matters. It opened only in June 2026, so some of the intended effect depends on plants thickening, shading paths and changing across seasons rather than on a finished architectural object

History

The site was previously the Namsan Outdoor Botanical Garden. Seoul retained and enriched existing planting while reorganizing the area into a new Korean-garden program rather than clearing the hillside and starting again

The Korean Forest Garden opened on June 27, 2026. Seoul framed it as a contemporary interpretation of Korean forest and garden culture, with 11 spaces under three themes

Its references are unusually explicit. Seoul’s own project material links Jidang Garden and Bamboo Grove Garden to Damyang’s Soswaewon and Juknokwon, Yeongji Garden to Myeongokheon, Pine Forest Garden to Uljin’s Geumgang pine forest, Moss Garden to Jeju gotjawal and Namsan Maru to Gangjin’s Dasan Chodang landscape logic

Before you go

The garden is spread across a hillside rather than arranged as a flat botanical display. Its most useful internal contrast is between the lower pond-and-bamboo spaces and Namsan Maru’s more open city view, so a visit reads better as a walk through changing enclosure than as a checklist of 11 named gardens