Table of contents for N. 572 in Space

An exhibition that proposes a new interpretation of the qualities of light through various genres, as well as allowing visitors to witness the limitations of light in a restricted space, has opened. It is the ‘Intimate Rapture’ exhibition which is a special exhibition at the Culture Station Seoul 284. Shin Sujin (exhibition director) stated that ‘The period where light began to be actively utilized overlaps with the history of photography. Coincidentally, it also coincides with the history displayed in the exhibition space.’ As mankind began to utilize light, they began by using it as a tool to view the world in a new perspective. The exhibition consists of seven themes, which include ‘Encountering Light after Darkness’, ‘Feeling the Light’, ‘Encountering the Sky’, ‘Seeing the World Through Light’, ‘Exploring the Boundary…

French artist Daniel Buren began to win attention from the art world in the late 1960s, when he began to create posters with 8.7cm width stripes on the street. The stripes became his trademark, as a site-specific art that is a visual tool in a neutral form, which uses the surrounding environment as the canvas. The site specific quality of such works which encompass time and space are called ‘in-Situ’, and it created new experiences based on the specific site’s context. The 313 ART PROJECT, located in Shinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, opened the Daniel Buren exhibition on Jun. 10, and it displays part of the artistic language that he had established over the course of 50 years. The window set-up work displayed in the front of the gallery has a steel…

The Point of View to the Outside Yang Gun: We can categorize architecture not native to Jeju by architecture built as a product by large-scale development firms and architecture built by actual consumers. The former has little consideration for Jeju-do. This is because these works are approached as a product similar to real estate. The latter try to consider the local scene. A positive point is that we can learn how to make a profit and how large-scale firms are managed through the latter. As such, we can perceive the way Jeju culture is understood by those not native to Jeju, as well as their mechanisms adopted for analyzing the local scene. Kim Sangeon: I don’t think there is anything really negative. Whether it is the former or the latter,…

‘Under what condition do I practice architecture?’: Choi Moongyu (professor, Yonsei University) interrogates physical and industrial conditions and the social backgrounds that have influence on architectural production and policy, to suggest that design is of prime architectural focus. Thus he focuses on establishing a new social relationship through the realisation of architecture rather than through architect’s own expression and building image. He has sought a rational methodology optimized to a Korean situation while extending towards a system which makes architecture out of an urban space. This is made manifest by his recent work. Unlike commercial buildings often found in metropolitan areas, which seek to secure a maximum floor space rather than a minimum open space, he proposes the Hyundai Card Music Library as an architectural method that will make people…

What is the placement alternative for multi-family housing units that encourage a closer community? Can all houses of any number of floors have yards? The KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology) is Korea’s first science research lab, established in 1966. More recently it has built the ‘Global Guesthouse’ to accommodate foreign researchers and their families and to provide them a convenient and joy-filled living environment. The Guesthouse was placed with a south facing yard at the top of the gently sloped land, stretching from east to west and encircled by a forest. Buildings were placed in accordance with the patterns of the sloping terrain, with some adjustments made to consider the vegetation. Building units were placed in a repeated pattern, not to emphasize the block of buildings as a…

The prominent German psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, who lived through the upheaval of the early 20th century, wrote The Red Book (Liber Novus) (1914–30), as an illustrated autobiography that captured his confrontation with the unconscious; which was based on years of self-observation and personal experience. Opening the 55th Venice Biennale, at ‘The Encyclopedic Palace,’ Jung’s dream induced narrative positively elucidated to what curator Massimiliano Gioni was pointing to; of the visual representation of anthropological knowledge of the world, as well as the intellectual development of the visual arts. For the 56th edition of the biennale curated by Okwui Enwezor, ‘All the World’s Futures’; the same central pavilion at Giardini carries seminal works by the late avant-garde Italian artist Fabio Mauri; including The Western Wall Il Muro Occidentale o del Pianto…

Italy predicted that approximately 20 million visitors would attend the Expo Milano 2015, investing a total of 1.3 billion EUR. They wanted the Expo to serve as a motivator by which the country’s image might be bolstered internationally, and for the Expo to become a pivot of new economic recovery. However, the first day of the Expo was ridden with anti-sentiment protests. Domestic support for the event had diminished as allegations of corruption amongst the organization committee were exposed. Today, the status of the Expo finds itself at a crossroads. If the Expo had previously served to fuel the pride and sense of superiority among a nation’s people, in this contemporary age of diminished national borders and increased economic walls the Expo has become more representative of a domestic waste…

Reviewer A Each space in the interior has a unique character. The second level, which contains the son’s office space, caught my eye as especially unique. Although the facade or the gestural quality that relates to the scenery may be less interesting, it still has the potential to become a good house if the life story of the client can be incorporated. Reviewer B The facade created by the brick masonry makes it hard for me to read the balance as solid, because there are too many elements that make up the organizational system. Even so, the interior composition has an excellent sense of completion. The interior and the exterior do not correspond in its forms, but the hidden order by the architect is still a very interesting element. Architect:…

This project takes us back to 2008. The artist decided to send a ‘particular’ message to North Korea after finding a propaganda leaflet at her front door. In the South information is accessible at the click of a mouse. In order to communicate with the other side of the border, where information is totally blocked, the artist uses a different approach: embroidery. You can presume the reason why it took Kyungah Ham six years to put together her solo exhibition, ‘Phantom Footsteps’, based on her testimony that it takes a year for the people on the other side of the border to hear the echo of a shout from the north. The long awaited artist returns to us with her imaginary phantom brought to life. Hyunjung Woo(Woo): The…

The blueprint for one of Seoul city’s main tasks, to utilize of the Seunsangga and the Nodeul-Island is now being drawn. On Jun. 17, Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) selected the winning team for International Competition for Re-structuring Seunsangga Citywalk, and on the 10th announced the Nodeul Dream Island competition first phase. The Seunsangga Competition’s prize winner is the Modern Vernacular designed by E_Skape (Kim Taekbin, Jang Yongsoon, and Lee Sangoo). The city’s alleys and houses that existed before the Seunsangga were established in the design as ‘vernacular’, and the idea was to naturally connect it to Seunsangga’s deck and the inside. It not only connects the north-south of Jongmyo and Namsan Mountain, and the east-west of Dongdaemun, it also inserts a mid-level between decks, to create a three dimensional axis…

In Park Kilyong’s (professor, Kookmin University) book The Critical Biography on the Modern Korean Architecture, it states that in the 1950s, the early stages of modern Korean architecture at a time in which there was still a long way to go, Bak Hak-jae was a ‘stern teacher’ and a ‘professor of comprehensive detail’. He adds that Bak Hak-jae’s Design Theory as Architecture Philosophy and Reason of Western Architecture are ‘celebratory books in modern Korean history.’ At the time, Bak Hak-jae went through 22 proof readings, a process only typically done two to three times, for the revised and enlarged edition of the books, and this shows his tenacity as a scholar and his passion for architecture. The Bak Hak-jae special exhibition held in the Seoul Museum of History is an…

City vs. the Cultural Industrial District Paju Book City (henceforth referred to as Bookcity) aims to create an ‘Ideal City’ that forms a ‘Culturescape’ modeled after ‘Cultural Industrial Districts’, a zone that is much more than just a manufacturing-based industrial complex. Bookcity continues to prove itself as one-of-a-kind, and has been right from the initial business proceedings. Following the initial proposal made by eight representatives to produce companies in 1989, roughly 360 small and medium-sized enterprises took the lead in the real estate developments for Bookcity, a privately led development plan that exceeded 1 trillion KRW for the first phase cooperation project (henceforth referred to as phase 1). In 1996, a sequential development plan on 1,584,000m2 (480,000 pyeong) of land was formulated, and in 1997 it was officially recognized as…

Is it general solution corresponding to the urban condition? Or is it particular solution sought by Choi Moongyu? Sung-Hong Kim (Kim): Today, beginning with three recent works, the KIST Global Guesthouse, the Yonsei International Campus Study House 3 and the Hyundai Card Music Library, I would like to discuss a number topics covering your projects of the last decade. At first sight, these three recent works seem to have nothing in common in terms of their site, programme, scale, structure and use of materials. They do, however, seem to have a common denominator in viewpoint, attitude, and working process. It is an attitude which makes its own conditions rather than applying an a priori concept behind a new experiment. You look to seek new possibilities from conflict between conditions and…

What is the potential of a small building in the middle of a gigantic campus? How does each space, all of varying sizes, expand into inner/outer space? The Yonsei University International Campus located in Songdo, Incheon, Korea was established following a three-phased master plan. The small study house was planned to extend across three building units, scattered in-between large buildings for easy access by the students. Instead of a unified and completed structure Study House 3 (Wisdom Hall C) was planned as an open building that would change in viewpoints, depending upon whether you were inside or outside of the building. The outside space was meticulously planned to allow students to use both indoor and outdoor areas as their study space. The big, transparent windows create an open study house.…

2. Boris Groys, “Immortal Bodies,” Going Public (Sternberg Press, 2010) 3. Boris Groys, “Religion in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” e-flux journal 4 (2009. 3.) The Korean pavilion at the 56th edition of this year’s Venice Biennale exhibits ‘The Ways of Folding Space & Flying,’ a multi-channel film installation produced by MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho, in collaboration with the curator Sook-Kyung Lee. The film of 10 minutes and 30 seconds shows an imagined apocalyptic moment when the city of Doges is flooded and the Korean Pavilion is the only building left. The seven-channel film is projected inside and outside of the Pavilion; two LED screens are installed on the facade of the Pavilion attracting the spectator’s attention. The Korean Pavilion is portrayed as a well-lit white laboratory, which providing…

The Theme and the Land The Expo Milano 2015 slogan is unequivocal: ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’. World hunger is a noble and ethically driven theme, one of the reasons for the BIE to house the international exhibition in Milan. Maybe this moral and abstract reason is the only one in this business. Much more prosaically and concretely, at the time of Milan’s candidacy, and for the first time in the history of the international exhibitions, the land for the Expo was private property, having belonged to the biggest Italian fair and to a family of Milanese developers. According to the theme of the Expo (Feeding the Planet), this land was originally agricultural, a private farmland site. After Milan won the Expo (while the site was still private property),…

Reviewer A Even though this building is small and contains a single programme, the idea that it makes layers and overlaps with those existing is interesting. It is a novel project. I wonder what the the design process was for the architect to design this building. Reviewer B The architect materialized the simple idea very delicately. The construction methods using the bricks and the detail of it is notable and the overall completeness is of a high standard. Architect: Lee Kang Jun (Hanyang Univ.) + Studio Origin Design team:Jeong Huida Location:1208-16, Gangnam-ro, Gangsang-myeon, Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, Korea Programme:single-family house Site area: 580m2 Building area:132m2 Gross floor area: 116.15m2 Building scope: 1F Height:4.05m Parking: 3 Buildingto land ratio:20% Floor area ratio: 20% Structure: RC Exterior finishing: exposed concrete, decorated brick Interior finishing:painted plaster board Structuralengineer:C.N.E…

When I approach a lot in the Pankyo housing complex, I personally see myself designing a U-shaped or a square shaped house. My main concern is the inevitable limitation of having a slender interior space, in order to secure a sufficiently sized courtyard within a fixed land area. When the XY axis depth is sufficiently planned, according to a standard living room, kitchen, and dining area, securing the horizontal depth to view the courtyard becomes difficult. It becomes more problematic when the volume surrounding the courtyard is more than two stories high. It will not only pressurize the courtyard horizontally, but also vertically. The courtyard style house is surely an optimistic architectural type, which forms an intimate relationship with the yard. However, the role of the yard is reduced to…

Yinka Shonibare MBE’s ‘Wilderness into a Garden’ is the theme of the exhibition held at the Daegu Art Museum, including 90 works of sculpture, installation, photography, and video.1 Shonibare was selected as the representative artist of the Africa Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2001 and 2007), and rose to international fame at ‘Documenta 11’, Kassel, Germany in 2001. Kim Sukmo (director of the exhibition, Daegu Art Museum), who is in charge of organizing this exhibition, shows documents on the artist by arranging studies of Yinka Shonibare so that visitor can broaden their understanding. To quote the preface and concluding portion of a piece on the pile, ‘The sculptures of Shonibare that wear African traditional clothes produce decorative and amusing scenes, but beneath lies criticism of the strong who have barbarically…

For a week, from May 25, the UAUS (Union of Architecture University in Seoul) held its fourth exhibition in the DDP. UAUS began as a union of eight schools in 2012 and now has 18 schools in Seoul participating, with students each year opening pavilions, and 300 students participated in this year’s pavilion. The union has grown greatly in a short period, so now it is right to analyze its present and future direction, and the sustainability of the students and the organization. System_ To preserve the ‘self-governing’ aspect of the union, it is important to have an efficient system. The UAUS established a planning committee in the first place school of last year, and it is to begin its run from October onwards. This year’s planning committee consists of…

As if to criticize today’s various media outlets, choosing to survive amidst the flood of explicit images, Kumho Museum of Art’s ‘Into Thin Air’ is silent and direct. The exhibition opened on the May 27, and it refreshes the sensations of modern day people whose sight, touch, and sound has been dulled by today’s relentlessly explicit media content. The exhibition consists of four floors, and each floor has about two or three pieces displayed, so it might feel like the exhibition wasn’t properly planned. However, from this arrangement, the audience can concentrate more on each work in the spacious environment. It’s like ‘The medium is the message’ proposed by Marshall McLuhan, without any bright neon signs to stimulate the eyes, and each work communicates with the audience on a one…

Jane Misun Shim (Shim): The ‘Experiment of Architopia’ is the first thematic exhibition of architecture held at MMCA. If past exhibitions explored the world of Chung Guyon, Itami Jun, Kimm Jongsoung, ‘Experiment of Architopia’ zooms out to look at the city as a whole under the theme ‘architects’ utopia’. How did the plan come about? Chung Dahyoung (Chung): The motive was that we shared the same subject ‘city’ with the current photography exhibition in MMCA, ‘City We Have Known’. While photographers take a contemplative and observational view of the city, architects, who directly engage with the city, base their approach on a vision that reflects the time in which they live. The utopian imagination, in particular, was thought to have influenced them. That’s why I thought it would be meaningful…

What is the new metropolitan alternative for the architecture of the street in a city surrounded by buildings? How do you create spatial continuity in a sloping topography? The roadside area of Itaewon-ro slopes from Namsan Mountain to the Hangang River, resulting in a fantastic view towards Gangnam and Gwanak Mountain. However, pedestrians are denied access to this extravagant vista, which has become blocked off from view by the surrounding buildings. If the performance studio in the basement is obscured, the ‘Music Library’ or ‘Urban Interstices’ on the surface adopt a plan that considers the passers-by and their relationship to the city. It is a space that gives pedestrians crossing the crosswalk a new scenic plane and performs various functions all year long. As the site is sloped, it is…

‘Which conditions am I subject to?’ Choi Moongyu is an architect with a sharp batting eye. Avoiding the ball as much as possible, he tries to hit only strikes. Without exhausting his energy, he increases his batting average. This is proven by the fact that he has succeeded in establishing his reputation as the ‘leading architect Choi Moongyu’ by only twenty something, building projects for seventeen years since opening his own office. This cannot be explained only by the privilege of the role of ‘professor architect’ in Korea and the strategies of choice and focus. Choi Moongyu compares himself to a rabbit hunter. In order to catch a swift rabbit, he has to keep running. But what if he finds a dead wild boar? Once he became accustomed to the…

The Limitations of the Korean Pavilion Jeonghoon Lee (principal, JOHO Architecture) The theme of this year’s Korean Pavilion at the Expo Milano 2015 is ‘fermentation’. Not much can be criticized about the theme itself, yet there are problems in its presentation. Fermentation itself is a theme hard to grasp by foreigners. The exhibition used cutting-edge technology and robots, and while this seemed passable considering Korea’s image of rapid speed and innovation, it lacked in any coherence with the theme. Could there be an effective way to make an impact when relaying the message of fermentation, especially during the short amount of time that one stays in the pavilion? While the visual effects may be impressive, can this really only be understood properly by visitors? Ultimately the pavilion succeeded in looking…

The Gyopyeong-ri House in Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do is sitting on a slope where the north eastern range of Yangjasan (mountain) meets the Namhan River. Therefore, one could look down to the Namhan River by looking at the north eastern side, which is the downward direction of the slope. Meanwhile, the front of the building is located in the south, which is in the vertical direction of the approach road. This forms the main characteristic of the house, because it creates overlapping lines of walls, eaves, stairs, and toenmaru (wooden porch), which makes the front part of the building very opaque. The overlapping of lines are not crossed at a right angle nor in a parallel, but made up with diagonal lines. This grants dynamic mobility, giving a a strong enough first…

Hayub Song, PhD AIA The Associate Professor at Chung-Ang University at Seoul, Korea. Doctoral study was undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored, Landmark; City Competes and translated Surface Architecture, as well as curated the Nodeul Island Workshop Exhibition at the Seoul Architecture Festival, 2014. Currently writes on the subject of Pavilion and Installation Architecture. Abstract Façade-poché designates the surfaces and inhabitable depths enclosed within ‘thickened’ window-walls in late modern buildings. It is configured by platforms, window-walls, and overhangs, all of which create well-shaded, inhabitable, and external depths. Unlike a façade that behaves as a visual object, like a picture plane in the street, the inhabitable depth of the façade-poché makes the building and the site operative for use. Particularly found in late modern architecture, the thin window-wall…