Due to an extreme anti-communism that still exists in the Korean society, it is hard for a memorial to be created to commemorate victims of the Korean War. Even memorials that purely convey stories of the war and victims cannot be welcomed by the city where various ideologies and values conflicts. Memorials should be closely related to the life of the city. When the commemorating ritual becomes a sincere requiem for those who have gone through pain, memorials can fulfil their responsibility, guaranteeing the life of the memory. Gachang Valley is the concealed place that silently represents the past and the current status of unresolved feud between incompatible ideologies originating back to Korean War.

 

The dam that was constructed after the Gachang Valley Massacre or Bodo League Massacre have been hiding more than 300 hundred bodies of under the reservoir for nearly 70 years, and the river that ran through the city dried up. Three spillway holes that will be made at the valley are a metaphor for three pits, each pit contains 100 bodies, which the victims were buried in. Every year in July, the spillway holes open and release the water, creating enormous three emptiness on the surface of the reservoir. The flowing water carries the soul of the victims to their home, drenching the parched, polluted river. It becomes an annual ritual celebrating their returing home and vitalizing city.

 

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Experience

It is a rainy day in July. You are going up the Sincheon-river, which cuts down the middle of the Daegu-city. You reach the Gachang dam at the south end of the downtown area. The spillway once situated at the right of the dam has disappeared. At the end of the place where it disappeared, a tunnel was built that allowed people to enter and pass over the dam. The Tunnel leads you down gently to the bottom. At the end of the path, you will find an empty cylindrical hall. The hall seems to be at least 10m deep and 20m in diameter. Water falls together with light from the ceiling. With the overwhelming sense of space and the sound of deep ringing, even the existence of those who have sought out the hall disappears. At the way out, there is an elevator. The elevator brings you up slowly, raising you up above water to the crown of the dam. Gazing upstream you can find the enormous three pits on the surface of the reservoir, soaking up the water.

 

 

Historical Background _ Massacre

Here, the SPILLWAY HOLE of the dam is a place of requiem for those who were killed in the Bodo League Massacre. The Bodo League Massacre occurred around the beginning of the 1950 Korean War, was an event in which the Korean government unilaterally massacred the entire country’s prisoners and members of the Bodo League under the pretext of removing potential counter-revolutionaries. The country recommended signing up for the Bodo League with propaganda saying that rice or foodstuffs would be distributed upon registration, however, most members were civilians that had no relation to politics and had committed no political offences.

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According to a testimony from the police that oversaw the site at the time, about 300 people were slaughtered at the Gachang Valley. The soldiers and policemen dragged the people to the valley, had them dig three pits, and then buried 100 people in each one. After the war, the families of the deceased gathered together to uncover the truth. But the military government denounced the association as a reactionary demonstration and executed or imprisoned the executives for a rebellion. Finally, in 2005, governmental efforts were made to uncover the truth of the Bodo League Massacre. However, the Gachang Dam built 4 years after the massacre, submerged the site of the massacre, preventing both the truth from being uncovered as well as even bodies from being collected.

 

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Scenario and Design

The commemoration begins first with fully emptying out the reservoir. Exposing the bottom of the reservoir is necessary in order to excavate the remains and uncover the truth. After the truth is uncovered, 3 spillway holes will be installed to control discharge flow of the reservoir. The three spillway holes are a metaphor for the three pits that roughly 300 innocent people were buried in at the time of the massacre. They are also a passage for the souls of the victims, who were unjustly dragged to the valley, to follow Sincheon back to the homes they miss.

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When the gates of the spillway holes are closed to collect water, the spillway holes are submerged under the water and cannot be seen. However, in July, a maximum of 540,000 tons of water is discharged through the hole, making three enormous pits on the surface of the water. This memorable scene of the reservoir will repeat every summer, to remember the massacre in the summer of 1950.

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Following that, once the water level reaches the height of the spillway hole, the water is no longer discharged and the upper part of the spillway hole comes out of the surface. Rain falls as time passes, the water in the reservoir overflows, and the spillway holes wait for the discharge that will happen the following year.

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Two of the three spillway holes are only used functionally to control the reservoir capacity. Therefore, people are not allowed to access. However, the remaining one allows visitors to go inside and experience it for themselves. Once the floodgate is shut, neither light nor water can enter the spillway hole, leaving nothing but darkness and silence. Then, once the floodgate is open, water pours in through the floodgate in the ceiling (the floodgate controls the flow of water for safety). When the discharge ends, warm sunlight calmly enters. The souls of those who passed away left from the valley, and in the remaining hole, nothing—not even the names of victims—is left.

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On the northeast side of the crown of the dam are history hall, memory repository and library. Made on the same spot where the dam’s upstream spillway once was, these places allow visitors to learn about the historical context of the incident and read the stories of the victims.

 

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Memorial and City

With the souls of the victims infused into it, the water of the valley runs through the city and proves alone that sympathy for the tragic deaths can be closely related to the lives of today. Constructed 4 years after the massacre, Gachang Dam not only concealed the pits that victims of the massacre were buried in for roughly 60 years, it blocked the flow of the river and dried up Sincheon-river. Since 1997, Daegu has been able to procure a rate of discharge by constructing stanks and discharging treated sewage water into the river. However, the river is still suffering from chronic environmental issues such as foul smells, excessive algae, and heavy metals. Using the spillway hole to periodically send the water from the valley is a more economical method than the present way of using treated sewage water. It is also a fundamental solution to restoring the river back to a state close to the one in which it originally existed.