The present market is not a tidy commercial complex planned at a single moment. Under Japanese colonial rule, its management was reorganized through corporate structures. Liberation and the Korean War brought returnees, refugees, and street vendors seeking a livelihood. Each major fire altered not only buildings but merchandise and methods of exchange.
The people controlling the market changed with each era
The colonial market cannot be explained simply as the free growth of Korean merchants. Colonial authorities and capital shaped land ownership, facilities, and permits. Merchants reorganized the market after liberation, but political disorder and war followed. Its continuity therefore contains sharp breaks in ownership and control.
After the war, even unofficial goods found buyers
During shortages, military supplies, relief goods, imports, and secondhand objects flowed into the market. Trade also operated outside official distribution channels. Finding, repairing, and reusing scarce goods became part of commercial skill. The mixture still visible in imported-goods arcades and general merchandise lanes touches this memory of the postwar economy.
Fire destroyed more than structures
In a tightly packed market, fire could erase inventory, credit ledgers, and trading relationships at once. Merchants nevertheless opened temporary stalls and resumed business. Today's concrete blocks and narrow corridors should be read not only as “old atmosphere,” but as spaces repeatedly modified for safety and survival.