Gamcheon Culture Village

Hillside Village Founded By Korean War Refugees, Transformed By A Village Art Project From 2009 · Busan, Busan

A hillside village of small, brightly painted houses stacked in terraces up the slopes of a valley in Saha-gu, western Busan, looking out toward the harbour and the sea. It grew from the 1950s, when refugees from the Korean War and the followers of Taegukdo, a Korean new religion, built simple homes on the steep ground, packed so tightly that the stairways and alleys between them became the only streets, yet laid out so that each house kept its view. For decades it was a poor, overlooked neighbourhood, until a village art project begun in 2009 brought artists, murals, sculptures and small galleries into empty houses and alleys, and painted the roofs and walls in pastel blue, pink, yellow and green. Now one of Busan's most visited sights, it is still home to thousands of residents. Visitors follow a stamp map from the information centre through the alleys to installations, viewpoints and rooftop cafes, and queue for a photograph with the Little Prince and his fox on a wall above the rooftops. Small buses climb up from Toseong station on metro line 1.

203 Gamnae 2-ro, Saha-gu, Busan, Busan, 49368, South Korea

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the village is a public neighbourhood with no gate, open at all hours, but the information centre, most shops, cafes and galleries open from about 9 or 10 am to 5 or 6 pm, closing earlier in winter, and some parts have been limited to daytime visiting out of respect for residents. Some galleries and cafes close one day a week, often a Monday. Traps: arriving after 6 pm to closed shops and quiet alleys; the Little Prince queue on weekend afternoons; rain or heat on the stairways; the last minibus down; Lunar New Year and Chuseok closures of small businesses.

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