Innehållsförteckning för N. 578 från Space

BAND of NODEUL of the Urban Transformer has won the Management Strategy and Facility Planning Competition of the Nodeul Dream Island. The team BAND of NODEUL claims to support a ‘multi-cultural base carried by music.’ At the award ceremony on Dec. 17 a representative, Kim Jeongbin (Urban Transformer, professor of University of Seoul) introduced their project explaining that ‘in order to weave the various stories and music into the island, we designed media platforms, cultural contents planning and production by expanding limits and restrictions of previous opera house plan for Nodeul island.’ Based on the plan, Nodeul Dream Island will reopen in 2018 with buildings for music and cultural facilitation (9,725m2 ) as well as unique outdoor facilities (36,000m2 ) such as Nodeul Forest and Nodeul Madang, among others. The…

Abraham Cruzvillegas, who visited Korea last April to exhibit the work ‘Autodestrucción 8: Sinbyeong’ (refer to SPACE June 2015 edition), will now show his large-scale installation work Empty Lot at the Turbine hall of the Tate Modern, London, UK, until Apr. 3. Cruzvillegas was selected as the first artist of the Hyundai Commission, a partnership between Hyundai Motors and the Tate Modern to support the development and popularization of modern art. The artist has installed a structure that extends right across the Turbine Hall, and has geometrically arranged approximately 240 plant pots within. Each of the plant pots hold approximately 23 tons of soil and fertilizer gathered from all over London, and the artist made the decision not to plant anything inside. For the five months of the exhibition, the…

The serious consequences of colonisation, which forced us to deny the unique qualities of our tradition for nearly half a century, left our Korean architectural world without clear design principles or aesthetics in the 20th century. While Japanese architecture secured its strong position in the history of western art and architecture of the 20th century through a tradition theorized in western grammar and inherited as if part of the DNA of contemporary architecture, Korea was immersed in a self-sufficient nationalism, explaining traditional architecture through an abstract and emotional vocabulary rather than a more rational, logical language. Confined to the idealism of Confucianism and Taoism, using words such as ‘beauty’, ‘impression’, ‘nature’, ‘land’, and ‘human’, and failing to found universal principles of spatial organization, Korea has tried to explain traditional architecture…

The very normal image of a house is all too familiar to us. This is the architecture Jeong Jaeheon has sought. Paradoxically, he designs buildings as the ones that he has not designed. He explores the prototype of house that we have in time and space by hiding his intentions, not revealing them, taking away the subordinates, not adding any new aspects, and finding materials in his surroudings. So it may feel familiar, as his architecture resembles a Korean traditional house and a house with a front yard. What he brings out from deeper recesses of our primitive memory are familiar vocabularies. This is not a simple borrowing but a variation, so that his familiar architecture gains a special ordinary value. Three works on this coverage have different use, for…

The scenery observed from the house is pleasant, and the light is clear and warm. The surrounding area is covered in tranquility. To the back of the site, the magnificent Chuwolsan Mountain comes close, and to the front, the gently rolling hills overlap with one another, and above them, the Mudeungsan Mountain, the famous mountain of Jeollanam-do, shows itself up. Surrounded by this spectacular natural scenery, the new houses have been created in a pure and simple form in a humble language of natural backgrounds, merging seamlessly into the landscape as if they had been there for a long time. The simple walls stay low to the ground and the cement brick, the main material, is neutral and blunt. Like a small temple in the mountain, the simplified wall surfaces…

Art has changed. The art realm now goes beyond white cube space, and the appearance of concepts such as a ‘museum without walls’ and the ‘Black Box’ implies that not only the characteristics of art and but also the means and essence of its existence have also changed. The ACT Festival, held at the ACC Creation from the 25-28 November organized the exhibitions, workshops, lectures, performances, panel discussion and screenings, in order to reveal the nature of art today. A number of renowned media artists shared their skills at workshops and then presented their latest performance artworks. One performance disappeared as if it wasn’t there at all, as a void space with blank screens. Just once in a place it cannot be represented as it was; the synesthetic experiences consist…

The audiovisual artwork test pattern [n°8] by Ryoji Ikeda reached a width of over 50m and a length of 10m. While it captured the imagination and sensual appreciation of viewers, as their eyes wander across the screen, artists in a side room were discussing whether computing in one hundred years time, showing their earlier work to share their toolkits. When the sun went down, the gallery was transformed into a theatre. The flashes and sounds from Syn_ by Ryoichi Kurokawa filled up the hollow space, awakening the perceptive faculties of the audience. There was one figure amidst these spots. He curated the exhibition ‘The Vault’, as well as workshops, performances and other features at the ACT Festival. There is no big difference between these activities: all stay within ‘liminal’ territories…

Reviewer A The curved mass enables the occupants of the nursing rooms to see each other. There have been modifications made to the original design, nevertheless, compared to other general nursery, the floor plan should be regarded as quite an advanced solution. Reviewer B The horseshoe shape that connects both inside and outside is surely a creative approach. The nursery in which children can learn in an open space and how to engage with nature will have an emotionally positive effect. After graduating from the School of Architecture of Hanyang University, Choi Haejin completed the in depth and intensive education of urban design in the Korea National University Of Arts. After the experienced architecture and interior practice in O.C.A., Atelier Jean Nouvel and Jay is Working, established ODDs&ENDs in 2012.…

On Dec. 12, the Mokchon Kim Jungsik Foundation announced the publication of Won Chung-soo · Chi Soon Oral History, the fifth book of documenting the ‘Contemporary Korean Architecture Archive’ series a year after the release of Yoon Seungjoong Oral Statement Collection and 4.3 Group Oral Statement Collection. This year a symposium was held under the theme, The Architecture, Inc. to expand the scope of discussions regarding contemporary architecture as the size of the archives grow. It was an opportunity for Koreans to acknowledge the deplorable lack of discussions taking place in academic spheres on the subject, unlike that of the United States, which expanded the scale of its architecture firms along with territorial expansion. Although the theme would generally make people think about major American architecture firms such as SOM and…

D MUSEUM, new exhibition space of Daelim Museum opened in Dokseodang-ro of Yongsan, Seoul on Dec. 5. The inaugural exhibition is comprised of nine separate rooms containing artworks of nine artists of installation, sculpture, video, sound and design using light as their object. ‘Spatial Illumination-9 Lights in 9 Rooms’ is designed to be appreciated according to fixed sequence of rooms. When a door closes, one may often be left alone in a room with only the work, and so the audience is naturally absorbed by the object emitting light in a space of white or black. Carlos Cruz-Diez creates a strange experience in Chromosaturation which mixes red, green and blue of RGB system in white space, as if one is walking into a computer screen. Meanwhile, My Whale by artist…

Acne Studios, which is now opening their first flagship store in South Korea, did not insist upon the main street view of Cheongdam-dong as many ordinary launchings of other brands. The building has hidden itself deep behind an alley at a backside road of the main street. At the end of the narrow blind alley, however, the store looks like it conceals what it should reveal, and it reveals what it should conceal; pulling out air-conditioning units and pipes which like its entrails. The irony is that the location and the appearance of the store shows appear not only as a play on the chaotic scenery of our city, but on another order of chaos that speaks to disorderliness. SPACE meets the British architect Sophie Hicks, who designed Acne Studios…

Over the course of half a century, the residents of Korea have undergone a huge transformation. The early days of modernization saw the chogajip torn down and changed into cement giwajips or slate houses, and through modernization and industrialization we have arrived at a residential form that is affordable, fast, and efficient. As a result, we never thought about why we built houses, what kind of home we need, or what kind of home was fit for our environment, but continued on living in houses that were like uniforms that did not fit our bodies. To face this situation, I designed the Dumulmeori House in 1998, and have designed a new house every year. So far I have built fifteen houses. I did not insist on a specific programme for…

Completed in 2011, the Oryukdo Gawon Restaurant has become a hotspot in Busan not long after opening. The number of visitors has increased abruptly, but the space was not even close to sufficient, therefore the extension was decided and to move the cafe to the extension. Referring to the fact that visitors prefer a waterfront space or an outdoor deck where they can feel the sea wind with their whole body from the interior, the extension is designed as a space in which people can experience and feel with their own senses the sounds of nature, wind and water. The site for the extension work was determined at an early stage of the project. From the entrance at Oryukdo Gawon, people can find the cafe humbly sitting in the distance.…

There are many ways to draw a circle on white paper. You can draw a line clockwise or counterclockwise, or even make out one with small dots. Say that you choose to make the colour blue. You can juxtapose yellow and green like pointillists, or overlap two different colours of transparent layers such as with cellophane. The outcome may be the same but the process and ideas in it are different. The advance of new media has led to significant changes in the way art is produced. The conventional way of moving a painting created in a studio into a white cube has been transformed into readjusting an installation that has been simulated in an atelier to fit in the black box. The subject of appreciation expanded from image to…

Reviewer A Fundamentally, this building seems to succeed in its attempt at fully establishing its own identity as a terminal in spatial design, finishing of an external skin, etc. So my question is how is it connected to its surroundings. Commercial programmes satisfying regional demands are usually inserted into terminals, and I wonder how this building is related to its surrounding area for its current operation. Reviewer B The building is outstanding in its eye-catching shape, and well finished in construction. The exterior material seems particularly unique, creating a special atmosphere around the building thanks to harmony with the regional climate. This accentuates the wise choices of the architect. Porto Cruise Terminal is a small port complex initiative of the Administracao dos Portos do Douro e Leixões, located on the…

Reviewer A The indoor and outdoor space organization is full of unique expression. It seems capable of accommodating various lifestyles. The wooden structure and roof finishing are sharply in contrast. It not too flashy yet it is a breath of fresh air. The traditional bricks used to make the chimney and well are also harmonious characteristics. Reviewer B It is indeed experimental but it is doubtful that it has proportional structure and efficient construction of empty spaces. The construction doesn’t necessarily reflect the owner’s memory of his hometown and the trails of his life. Won Gyeyeon was born and bred in Gangwon-do. He graduated from Department of Architecture at Kangwon National University and has been a practicing architect at Architecture Forum and studio asylum. He is currently running an studio…

On Dec. 1 the MMCA Seoul opened their doors to the first domestic solo exhibition of William Kentridge, an artist who freely deals with all materials, techniques and genres available to him including charcoal, animation, video installation works, kinetic sculptures and live performances. The exhibition Peripheral Thinking focuses on tracking the artist’s footsteps over the last 25 years. In that perspective, the exhibition resembles the artist’s charcoal animations. As can be seen from the exhibition leaflet, the artist draws with charcoal in his own studio, capturing images as photographs with an old camera, erasing them and drawing them again, in the repeated process of taking photos resulting in still drawings which in turn become moving animation. The artist’s technique of breathing life into images by recording each moment over time…

Minouk Lim’s exhibition, ‘The Promise of If, which will be installed in the PLATEAU Samsung Museum of Art until Feb. 14, stimulates our imagination by overlapping two conflicting words. In order to fill a gap between a ‘probable unexpected case’ and ‘predefined contents’, the artist selected one case from the past. Although we could watch the real-time reunion of family members separated during the Korean War on the KBS live broadcast ‘Finding Dispersed Families’ in 1983, most of the stories aired at that time have since been expunged from history. Lim has maintained her focus on montage split screens and camera movement with close ups on the hand-written posters (The Promise of If). Arranging the faces of family members from different regions side by side, the images stitch physical distance…

Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 5468796 Architecture (546) is receiving international attention as their work, created over a relatively short eight-year period, is gaining recognition from numerous awarding bodies including Architect Magazine, the World Architecture Festival, World Architecture News, the Architectural Review and the Rice Design Alliance. 546 acted as co-curators and the commissioning body for the Canadian Pavilion at the 2012 Architecture Biennale—La Biennale di Venezia. In this interview, the founding partners of the firm, Johanna Hurme and Sasa Radulovic, describe their passionate search for the renewed civic potential of architecture and discuss how their experience of ‘displaced values’ has influenced the way they position their work. The radicalization of the real is their way of neutralizing the values, abstract nuances and cultural biases surrounding architecture. They are inviting…

Toh Sangbong, the Lilac Painter_ Toh Cheon Lilac House, where Toh Sangbong lived and worked, is regarded as the home of Korean Modern Western painting. After settling there in 1930, Toh began to get acquainted with prominent painters of the time such as Whanki Kim and Chun Kyung-ja, while teaching students about Modern Western painting. Though he has now long passed away, his descendants have been living there for four generations. Toh Kyuyoung, grandson of Toh Sangbong, wanted to move out of the house built in 1970s as it had become worn and its living environment was poor due to the high-density of multi-household houses that were rapidly taking up the surrounding area. However, taking account of the value and importance of the old house, I, an old friend of…

I would like to start this essay with a memory of an exhibition held this spring. I found and visited the exhibition ‘DIS/PARITIES’ at a Gallery Unofficial Preview (from 16 May–16 June 2015) via a social network invitation, and it left a deep impression on me as an unexpected phenomenological experience in the usual gallery space. The exhibition of the media artist SangChul Nam and filmmaker Rainer Kohlberger features work that experiments with electronics, sound, light and space. Kohlberger’s work in particular, which is a very pure form of audio-visual installation, presents strong transcendental experiences to an audience with only abstract rhythms of light and sound. Vivid stripes, which reminded me of a scanning line of cathode ray tube TV, smooth waves corresponding to droning noise. Electrical images created by…

Reviewer A The architect created a consistent form and did a good job of creating a form that is unfamiliar, yet not strange. I want to give it high marks for utilizing a cramped space in order to develop the social space. However, the lower part, without the windows, seems a bit stifling. Reviewer B The first thing that sticks out is the mass, which seems well-balanced. The treatment of the finishing material, which makes it seem as if it’s not exposed concrete, is also impressive. Overall, the project looks very solid and complete. Yoon Jaemin was born in Gyeongnam Sacheon, South Korea in 1971. He moved to France to study interdisciplinary boundaries between art and spatial design such as stage installation art, interior design, architecture, landscape design and urban…

INTRODUCTION: Fallacy of Modernity and the Four Tasks for Future Design TASK 1: Creating a New Civilization to Incorporate Eastern and Western Values TASK 2: Shift in the Design Paradigm for a Sustainable Society TASK 3: The Good Use of Digital Technology and the Design Revolution in Everyday Life TASK 4: The Rise of China and the Creation of East Asian Design Style CONCLUSION: Design for New Civilizations Opening a New Era Dr. Kwon Young Gull graduated from the Department of Applied Art, Seoul National University and the Graduate School of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received an M.A. in Design. Later returning to Korea, he acquired his Ph.D. in Architectural Engineering from Korea University. Dr. Kwon has authored 39 books including 16…