The Architect of Forgotten Spaces: How One Scholar Rewrites Cities Through Advertising

Dr. Min-Hee Jeon transforms industrial wastelands and urban voids into places where people belong—one billboard at a time.

In the gleaming commercial districts of South Korea's major cities, where digital billboards tower above pedestrians like modern-day monuments, there is a scholar who reads these landscapes not as advertisements (광고) but as conversations between a city and its people.

Dr. Min-Hee Jeon, a research professor at Incheon Catholic University's Industrial District Cultural Regeneration Center (산업단지 문화재생센터), has spent the better part of a decade asking a deceptively simple question: What if advertising (광고) could heal cities instead of just selling things?

"Advertising (광고) is not simply about display," she says, her voice carrying the measured thoughtfulness of someone who has spent years observing how images shape urban life. "It is about breathing life into a space."

Her journey—from the glittering outdoor advertising (옥외광고) zones of Seoul and Busan to the aging factory districts of Incheon—reveals a scholar who refuses to accept the conventional boundaries between disciplines. She is part theorist, part urban planner, part artist. And her work suggests that the future of cities may depend less on grand architectural gestures than on the stories we choose to tell about the spaces we inhabit.

The Epiphany at Samsung Station

Dr. Jeon's transformation began in earnest during her doctoral research, when she encountered the concept of "outdoor advertising free display zones"—designated areas where the usual regulations governing billboards are relaxed in favor of creative expression. The experience was revelatory.

"I watched numbers on a page become the actual landscape of a city," she recalls. "That moment, I understood that advertising wasn't simply a medium—it was the most dynamic art form on an urban canvas."

Her doctoral dissertation, "Development of an Exposure Effect Measurement Model for Domestic Outdoor Digital Signage (국내 옥외 디지털 사이니지): Focusing on Audience Perception According to Place Characteristics," was an attempt to quantify what she had observed intuitively: how visual and spatial stimuli from digital signage awakens public consciousness (공중의식) and transforms ordinary locations into destinations.

But theory, for Dr. Jeon, was never enough.

The Daegu Experiment: When Research Becomes Policy

Shortly after completing her doctorate, Dr. Jeon was given the opportunity to test her ideas in the real world. She was asked to lead the designation of Daegu's Dongseong-ro district as a special outdoor advertising zone—a project that would become a watershed moment in South Korean advertising policy.

Unlike previous free display zones, which had been dominated by large corporate screens, Dr. Jeon's vision was radically democratic. She designed the project to encourage participation from small and medium-sized businesses, allowing the entire street to function as a unified media spectacle orchestrated by local merchants rather than conglomerates.

The result was unprecedented: Daegu became the first city in South Korea to designate an entire street corridor as a special advertising zone. The transformation was immediate. What had been a commercial district struggling to compete with Seoul's glittering downtown became a destination in its own right—a place where people went not just to shop, but to experience.

"The theory had to serve the people," she explains. "Not the other way around."

The Industrial District Awakening

But it was Dr. Jeon's work in Incheon's aging industrial districts that revealed the true depth of her vision. Here, in factories and warehouses that had once been the engines of South Korea's economic miracle, she found not obsolescence but untapped possibility.

The problem was clear: young people were fleeing these areas. Factory districts had become synonymous with decline, their aging infrastructure a symbol of a Korea that was being left behind. The conventional solution would have been cosmetic—a fresh coat of paint, perhaps some new signage.

Dr. Jeon saw something different. She saw a governance problem.

Working with students from Incheon Catholic University, she began visiting factories and speaking with business owners. She discovered that companies were desperately seeking talent, while young people were searching for authentic opportunities to build their dreams. The disconnect wasn't economic; it was communicative.

"I realized that if we could help companies and students truly see each other—if we could make the industrial district a place where stories were told and dreams were visible—everything would change," she says.

What followed was a series of projects that blended artistic sensibility with strategic planning. Media art installations appeared on factory walls. Student-led branding initiatives gave companies a voice. The industrial district began its metamorphosis from a place people fled to a place where they chose to build their futures.

"The regeneration of industrial districts begins when students and companies truly see one another," Dr. Jeon reflects. "My hope is that these projects will transform industrial areas from isolated islands into living cities where young people's dreams and companies' futures coexist."

The Data Whisperer

In an era when algorithms and big data dominate advertising strategy, Dr. Jeon has become an unlikely champion of what she calls "human-centered data." She analyzes movement patterns in industrial districts using sophisticated analytics, yet she insists on grounding every insight in the lived experience of the people she studies.

"Numbers capture behavior, but they miss emotion," she explains. "The subtle feelings of a person, the historical context of a space—these are what transform a location from a mere place into a meaningful destination. Technology should serve human experience, never the reverse."

This philosophy extends to her current research into artificial intelligence and immersive content in advertising. Even as she explores the cutting edge of media technology, her north star remains unchanged: How can this tool make human experience richer?

The Next Chapter

Dr. Jeon is now preparing for a faculty appointment, standing at a threshold between her accomplished past and an uncertain but promising future. Her vision for what comes next is characteristically ambitious yet grounded in humanity.

She wants to mentor a generation of researchers who maintain their connection to the real world—scholars who understand that the most rigorous theory means nothing if it doesn't improve actual lives. She wants to continue filling the empty spaces in our cities with warmth and meaning. And she wants the papers and proposals she writes to become more than academic exercises; she wants them to become the lived experiences of communities.

"Whether it's outdoor advertising or industrial districts, the essence is the same," she says. "It's about breathing warmth into neglected spaces and amplifying the voices of the people who inhabit them. I want the papers and proposals I write to become warm sentences that fill the gaps in our society."