What Makes a Home New? A Seoul Apartment That Kept Its Bones
with UniverSe · Residence · Seoul, November 2026 In this story Spot the Difference A Small Apartment in Northwest Seoul The Room Before Seven Differences Two Things That Did Not Change Looks Old, or Is Old? The Last Ten Percent The Ship and the Kitchen Back to the Two Photographs Spot the Difference On my desk are two photographs of the same living room in Seoul. One was taken in early October. The other, sixteen days later. I do what anyone does with a pair like this. I play spot the difference. The wall. The floor. The light. The door. I count quickly and reach seven. Then I notice I have been looking at the wrong thing. The more interesting question is not what changed. It is what did not. Hold on to those two photographs. We will come back to them at the end. A Small Apartment in Northwest Seoul The apartment is in Hongje-dong, in Seodaemun-gu, a residential district in northwest Seoul. The complex is called Hongje Sungwon. It is an older building, the kind that fills...