Innehållsförteckning för April 2022 från Space

Ian Cheng’s first solo exhibition in Asia, ‘Ian Cheng: Worlding’, will be held from Mar. 2 to July 3 at Leeum Museum of Art in Hannam-dong, Seoul. Known as a pioneering artist using artificial intelligence and game engines to create virtual ecosystems, Cheng has long explored the nature of human consciousness. This exhibition, where five works, including a new animation, welcome the audience, is held across two spaces: the white cube and the screening room. His notable works, Emissaries Trilogy (2015 ‒ 2017) and BOB (2018 ‒ 2019), are screened on large screens lining left and right of the entrance to the gallery. In the three videos that disclose the evolution of the consciousness of the main character ‘Emissary ’, they are shown in different guises as a shaman’s daughter,…

ARKO Art Center presents the exhibition ‘To You: Move Towards Where You Are’ on the theme of movement from Feb. 24. Eight teams of participating artists ask whether the movement is equal for everyone, and examines the multifaceted meanings behind what it is to move. The exhibition begins by receiving a wireless call before entering. Upon entering the exhibition hall, you are met by a serving robot navigating between works, which is Ryu Ahyeon’s work entitled Polite Guys (2022). Once the wireless call rings out, the audience returns it to the robot. The moving robot encourages the audience to move while at the same time urging the audience to acknowledge their complicity in a system of contemporary consumption and distribution through the advertisement attached to the machine. Oh Jooyoung focuses…

Because of their long history of differentiations, the terms ‘interior’ and ‘city’ seem on the surface to contradict each other. To paint the clearest dichotomy, interiors are roofed over and artificially lit and the city is open to the sky and elements. Despite these polarities, many grey areas exist: unconditioned building cores, canopied plazas, and subterranean urban zones are just a few of the spatial settings that blur the boundary between city and interior. How then should we describe these often-converging architectural domains? We could turn to the term ‘Interior Urbanism’, but it has emerged as an ‘ism’, synonymous with expansive interiors: The late John Portman is often cited as the concept’s grandfather and his oeuvre of vast hotel atriums from the 1960s and 70s are recently re-read as ‘urban’…

Gwangnaru Rescue Center of Water Disaster, which covers a 9.4km section from upstream of Jamsil Bridge to Gangdongdaegyo Bridge, which other rescue operations can’t cover. It is an emergency service office that can accommodate seven members of a special water rescue team who stay for three shifts around the clock every day. The self-floating building constructed at the riverside of Gwangnaru Hangang Park in Cheonho-dong, Gangdong-gu, which is close to Jamsil, Cheonho, and Gwangjin Bridges (with their many suicide attempts) aims to secure safety with the goal of a four-minute arrival (which is essential in water accidents). Evacuation is ordered to a safety zone when the water level on the lowlands of the Han River basin reaches 10.5m in a flood, about 4m higher than the average. Usually, the water…

A building with an exterior that resembles a stack of books, known as Graphic, now occupies a place on Hoenamugil in Itaewon-dong. The exterior material was formed in collaboration with the Chinese ceramic artist Wen Ping, and the building’s concept is a comic book rental store-cum-bar. Traces of Kim Jong-u’s (principal, OONN) work can be found in the use of materials and lighting that have been designed to satisfy users in their experiences drinking and reading a graphic novel within the space. Kim Jong-u opened his office OONN in 2021 after managing his spatial design studio U.lab for about 15 years, and Graphic is OONN’s debut project. I had a chance to ask him about how he came to build Graphic and to hear more about his thoughts on interior…

‘Park Soo Keun: The Naked Tree Awaiting Spring’, which was held at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung, came to an end on Mar. 1. This exhibition offered an overview of the life and work of Park Soo Keun, and part of Park Wan-suh’s novel The Naked Tree was introduced to aid understanding of the post-war period in which he lived. Park Wan-suh and Park Soo Keun painted portraits of American soldiers at the PX inside the US military base, after which Park Wan-suh published The Naked Tree with a motif by Park Soo Keun. At the end of the novel, the author notes: ‘Amid the darkest era, after the Third Battle of Seoul, when it was hard to get by without the strongest alcohol to keep…

As a basic element of living, one of the necessities of life, a house is a space that is necessary and important for everyone. However, its meaning differs from person to person. For the artist Suh Suhyun, a house is a world of its own, distinguished from the wider world. She enjoys complete freedom and recovery in her house. From Feb. 18. to Mar. 4, Suh Suhyun’s first solo exhibition ‘HOUSE IN THE HOUSE’ was held at space uooyoung in Seongbuk-dong. This exhibition presents the artist’s thoughts on the meaning of a house through art furniture. When you enter the blue gate of the exhibition hall, which has been converted from a house, and take off your shoes, you will encounter a cosy and colourful gabled house, house in the…

The architectural sketch exhibition of Seung H-Sang ‘SOULSCAPE’, on show at GALLERY 508 in Cheongdam-dong, came to an end on Mar. 12, after a month-long programme. Instead of displaying drawings and photographs, the exhibition space was filled with small models and sketches hung from the wall. In the places of caption descriptions of each work, only the names of the building, completion dates, and the locations have been listed. Just as the architect facing an empty site begins to draw a line pondering so many others on an empty page of a sketchbook, the exhibition must have intended to encourage the audience to follow the architect’s process of thinking by returning to the beginning point of architecture, leaving behind wider product information. This is also well expressed in the preface…

On Jan. 24, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon appointed Cho Byoungsoo (co-principals, BCHO Partners) as the general director of the 2023 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. The general director is in charge of nominating the theme of the event and the general planning of the exhibition. Pai Hyungmin (professor, University of Seoul) and Alejandro Zaera Polo (principal, AZPML) in 2017, Jae Y. Lim (principal, Office of Contemporary Architecture) and Francisco Sanin (professor, Syracuse University) in 2019, and Dominique Perrault (principal, Dominique Perrault Architecture) served as the general director for the third Biennale in 2021. Cho Byoungsoo expressed his aspirations, asserting, ‘I will create a place in which one can picture Seoul 100 years later, an eco-friendly, high-density city that harmonises with Seoul’s traditional geographical environment consisting of mountain, water, and…

The Design Competition for the New Construction of the Namhae-gun Office Building On Jan. 28, ‘Namhae-ro oh-si-da’ designed by D&B architecture design group (principal, Cho Doyeun) + Shinhan Architects & Engineers (principal, Jeong Inho) was selected as the winner of the Design Competition for the New Construction of the Namhae-gun Office Building. The five masses exposed at the top of the building are connected to five gardens, and the exterior space draws on the difference in the height on the site while revealing various sceneries across Namhae-gun. Kim Jinwook (professor, Seoul National University of Science and Technology), the chairman of the jury committee, said the project had been selected as ‘it satisfies the requirements to attract tourists and revitalise the region, and fulfilling the functions of a public office building…

The works of CoRe Architects have all been acknowledged as primary examples of projects that have enhanced our understanding of public architecture. However, when observing the attitudes of those dealing with public architecture projects, simply saying that they ‘designed’ the projects is not sufficient While working very real and calmly, they are gaining the completeness and social value of architecture by using passion and romance such as ‘excitement’, ’endurance’, and ‘responsibility’ underneath. What are they achieving? Let’s follow the in direction of CoRe Architects and their aims for public constructions and architecture itself.…

The solo exhibition ‘Homo Natura’ by Song Sanghee, which was on show at Seoul Museum of Art, came to an end on the 27th of February. As the winner of the of The Hermès Foundation Missulsang 2008 and the Korea Artist Prize 2017 at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Song is not a newcomer to the contemporary art scene as a media artist. Song focuses on presenting the silent voices of people across known sites of natural disasters, acts of terror, war, and genocide that had either been forgotten or ignored, and this solo exhibition – the first time she has exhibited her work alone in a national museum in Korea – marks the end of a 20-year hiatus in her practice, returning with a more refined…

The solo exhibition of Ha Chong-Hyun, known as a pioneer of Dansaekhwa (Korean monochrome paintings), was on show at Kukje Gallery until Mar. 13. The artist’s representative work is the Conjunction series which found first expression in the 1970s. This series of works employ an expressive method by which thick paint is applied on the back of thick linen cloth and pressed so that the colour comes out on the front side of the fabric. One can sense the colour and physical properties of paint through this technique. Since then, the Conjunction series has steadily evolved through multicolour effects and the construction of new techniques. While Ha mainly used simple colours reminiscent of roofing tiles or white porcelain in his previous series, he employed various colours in the new works…

The Seoul Design Foundation has long conducted DDP Open Curating, since 2015, to discover new creators and designers. ‘Material Collective’ is the 21st series exhibition from DDP Open Curating and is on show from Feb. 18. to May 8. at Gallery Mun in Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). In this exhibition, New Tab-22, an exhibition planner and a participating artist, wanted to share their collections with six designers who push the boundaries of materials. In the ‘material experience zone’ at the entrance of the exhibition hall, natural resin, plastic bottle flakes, and waste banners were arranged and hung to resemble an experimental chart. It arouses our curiosity about how the lifespan of materials derived from nature, trashed, recycled or with limited use can be extended. Artist Shin Taeho made pen holders,…

On Feb. 21, the awards ceremony for the Alternative-city Idea Competition was held. The competition was conducted for the first time this year to recognise the problems presented by our current urban conditions, inevitably leaning toward the large cities, and to locate alternatives in small towns. Participation was limited to those at the level of researcher who could present clear and detailed strategies for the future of the city. The winning works were Kim Junwoo (professor, Daegu University)’s New Garden City and Moon Jihoon (research fellow, Urban-Lab Cooperative)’s Plug-In City. Kim Jun-woo established an urban structure linking Mungyeong-si Sanyang-myeon, Yecheongun, and Yonggung-myeon, and proposed an agricultural-based industrial city. This proposal includes how to apply the public concept of land ownership to secure farmland, which is a barrier to the settlement…

Architect Delmulle Delmulle Architecten (Seger Delmulle, Frank Delmulle) Location Knokke-Heist, Belgium Programme single house Site area 940m2 Building area 106m2 Gross floor area 390m2 Building scope B1, 3F Parking 2 Height 10.48m Building to land ratio 11.28% Floor area ratio 18.3% Structure concrete, brick, timber structure Exterior finishing glass, limewash brick, red tiled roof Interior finishing plastering, wood, natural stone Structure engineer Util Struktuurstudies Construction demolition ‒ GLK / foundation ‒ Franki / concrete ‒ Dekeyser Betonwerken Landscape Denis Dujardin Design period Nov. 2015 ‒ June 2016 Construction period Sep. 2016 ‒ Dec. 2019…

The site is located between the Gomori Reservoir and the Korea National Arboretum, the foremost tourist destinations in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do. There are many cafés here, as many as one every 100m. Our task was to create the most impressive and memorable spaces between these nearby cafés. I had imagined a site open to the reservoir or next to a forest near the mountain, but it was not to be. The site was about 3m lower than its surroundings, and it was challenging to secure any recognition with every kind of restaurant crowding this area. The 3m retaining wall that can be seen from the site was made by pouring concrete randomly on the stone embankment. The only hopeful aspect was that there was a narrow stream running along the east…

Towards the end of last year, another historic factory in Seongsu-dong was given new life as a new spatial platform. While this is no longer something new, LCDC SEOUL exudes a certain different atmosphere in comparison to the commercial complex spaces that came before. The difference may come from its linguistically-weaved meticulous planning, the architecture that acts as its dependable background, and its particular view toward the neighborhood. I had the opportunity to interview the project management team composed of Kim Jaewon (principal, Atelier Écriture), Chung Kangwha (professor, Konkuk University), and the architect Seo Seungmo (principal, Samuso Hyojadong). Park Semi (Park): I’d like to know how the LCDC SEOUL (hereinafter LCDC) project came about. What brief did you receive from the client and what was your approach? Kim Jaewon (Kim):…

Erased Korean Modern Architecture authored by Park Goeun was published in January 2022, highlighting the erased works of modern architecture in Seoul, Korea, as negative heritage sites. The designer’s log, which documents traces of vanished architecture from the various data archived in movies, newspapers, postcards, news, and so on, cuts across Korea’s modern history in terms of space and architecture when a certain period of time is removed from historical record. In conversation with the author, here we will hear stories of this erased time, which shed light on modern architecture obscured or erased by propaganda such as the liquidation of past history, anti-Japanese sentiment, and erasing traces of military dictatorship. Bang Yukyung (Bang): I am curious about the career background of the author, as the book Erased Korean Modern…