Sommaire pour May 2022 de Space

The winner of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize is Diébédo Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso, which is one of the poorest countries in Africa. As it was difficult to receive an education in his hometown, Kéré left for Germany to embark on his architecture studies at Technische Universität Berlin before setting up his office Kéré Architecture in Berlin in 2005. Pritzker Foundation introduces Kéré as an architect and an activist. His first work and world debut Gando Primary School (2001) was a school project built in his hometown through a support foundation established with his peers during his studies and the organisation of local participants. In this project, Kéré used clay and sand – the two most common ingredients in the region – and completed the wall and double roof,…

The photography exhibition, ‘Look Back on the Past, Dream of the Future, and Gaze upon the Present’, was held from Feb. 18 at the partially opened site of the US military base in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. The Yongsan Garrison has long been a land beyond the border that Koreans were not permitted to enter for 118 years. However, as the US military moved to Pyeongtaek in 2016, a government project to convert the site into a park has been underway. In August of last year, part of the site was opened to be used as a residence for US military officers to the public. The Yongsan Garrison, which is transforming itself from a prohibited space into a public park symbolising freedom and peace, is currently at a transitional stage. The exhibition…

On Apr. 21, the documentary film Great Contract: Paju, Book, City, set in pajubookcity, was officially released. Pajubookcity is the only city dedicated to publications in the world that integrates all publishing infrastructure, such as editing, printing, and distribution. In 1989, the publishing industry dreamed of a city for publishing that would improve the general working environment. In 2000, the architecture community signed a ‘great contract’ with them in the hopes of a new city. Paju Swamp, which used to be a wasteland, has been filled with the buildings of famous domestic and foreign architects under a master plan that is also respectful of nature. As time passed, the second-phase construction of the book city proceeded, and filmmakers began to settle here. The film condenses the 30-year history of pajubookcity…

The International Design Competition for Yeonsu-gu Youth Center On Mar. 14, Yeonsu-gu selected the work of Na Jongwon + Of Architecture (principal, James Mak) as the winner of the International Design Competition for Yeonsu-gu Youth Center. The international design contest, which attracted qualified architects at home and abroad, was promoted to provide a space for various youth development activities, including cultural activities and career experience activities for teenagers. The site covers 3,000m2 of land located in Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, and Songdo 5-dong Administrative Welfare Center is under construction on the western side, and the lakes and nearby parks are adjacent on the northeast. Kim Sooyoung, chairman of the judging committee, noted, ‘It reveals the character of the youth training centre best, and I think it will be a highly workable…

Architect Min Workshop (Min Wusik) Design team Lee Seunghun Location 10-14 triplehills- ro, Yongin, Korea Programme single house Site area 235m2 Building area 117m2 Gross floor area 233m2 Building scope 3F Height 10m Parking 2 Building to land ratio 49.8% Floor area ratio 99% Structure RC Exterior finishing concrete brick, stucco Interior finishing Lacquer paing, wooden flooring, galvanized steel Structural engineer Eungujo Engineering Construction Jayeon and Wuri Mechanical and electrical engineer PCM, Inc. Design period July 2018 – Feb. 2019 Construction period Mar. – Nov. 2019 Client Hong Youngjun, Cho Yanghee The first thing when beginning any of our designs is undoubtedly the lifestyle of residents. Having started with the two key client requests — that is, for the living room, kitchen, and dining hall to be all on the…

Architect Min Workshop (Min Wusik) Design team Lee Hyemi, Lee Hyungjoo, Kim Suhwan, Jung Gyeom Location 43, Jumbong-gil, Yeoju, Korea Programme café Site area 2,400m2 Building area 772m2 Gross floor area 1,277m2 Building scope B1, 1F Height 5m Parking 28 Building to land ratio 32.2% Floor area ratio 53.2% Structure RC, steel Exterior finishing stucco, exposed concrete Interior finishing concrete brick, terrazzo, paint Structural engineer Eungujo Engineering Construction Jium CM, Inc. Mechanical and electrical engineer PCM, Inc. Design period May 2020 – Feb. 2021 Construction period Mar. 2021 – Jan. 2022 The triangular site adjacent to Yeongdong Expressway gave off a desolate impression. Other than the rapidly passing cars and huge semi-trailers going in and out of a nearby warehouse, there were not many elements to be taken from the…

There are various ways in which a café can gain more publicity. Tanatap Ring Garden, which is a café located in Jakarta, Indonesia, began with the local architect’s understanding of the lack of good public architecture in that area. They explore the possibility of an architecture that benefits both humans and nature, citizens and developers, by providing gardens to citizens and realising profitability through commercial spaces that also seeks a togetherness with nature. Park Jiyoun (Park): Tanatap Ring Garden, a café in Jakarta, Indonesia, is the second branch of the Tanatap coffee shops. What makes Tanatap brand different from all others? Antonius Richard Rusli (Richard): Quality open space is the single most important thing that architecture can pursue right now for developing cities and in a developing country such as…

The solo exhibition ‘Andreas Gursky’ by artist Andreas Gursky, a master of contemporary photography, opened on Mar. 31 at the Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA). Gursky is a photographer who is praised for breaking the photographic art frame and writing a new history of contemporary photography from a unique experimental spirit. This exhibition is attracting a lot of attention as it is his first solo exhibition in Korea and also a place in which to showcase two large-scale new works that have never before been released. The exhibition is composed of three themes: the ‘constructed image’, ‘art historical references’, and ‘sublime aspiration’, helping to deepen understanding of the artist’s work. A total of 47 pieces of exhibits range from works shot with a film camera in the 1980s, when the…

Garden in Time designed by JOHO Architecture (principal, Lee Jeonghoon) was selected for the ‘MMCA Gwacheon Project 2022: Rooftop Garden’. As a middle-to-long term spatial revitalisation project organised by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) since last year, the MMCA Gwacheon Project was initiated in collaboration with professionals from diverse fields to revitalise the Gwacheon Hall and enrich the exhibition experience in anticipation of its 40th anniversary in 2026. As the first project, ( ) function designed by Diagonal Thoughts (principal, Kim Sara) picked three bus stops that will offer the first impression of Gwacheon Hall to introduce a new type of sensation into a series of experiences as one approaches the museum. The second project Garden in Time reemphasises the locational aspects of the rooftop space,…

Amid a large-scale apartment complex being demolished ahead of redevelopment, a documentary titled Cats’ Apartment which depicts people talking about the life of neighborhood cats there, was released on Mar. 17. The film is the fourth documentary by Jeong Jaeeun, who has continuously recorded the history and ecosystem of urban residential spaces from 2012 to now, paying attention to the relationship between space and people. The movie features people with diverse backgrounds and their relationships with about 250 cats who are residing in an apartment complex. The project group ‘Dunchoncat’ which worked for ecological migration in the shoes of cats and cat moms who have been taking care of cats by calling them names for a long time, have shared their goals for a safe and happy life, but they…

Looking back over his career, Min Wusik (principal, Min Workshop) summarizes his method as that of striking ‘a balance between intuition and universal solutions’ (covered in SPACE No. 621). In this present frame article, Min notes that his ‘current interest lies with how mutually contrasting elements (e.g. ornaments, primordiality, light and vanishing points) strike a precarious balance and offer transitional moments into architecture in each project’. This reveals how his contemplation of balance has been transposed into a more specific and focused architectural language. In much the same way as Choi Wonjoon (professor, Soongsil University) traces the effective nature of contemporary tectonics embraced in Min’s work, Min’s way of discovering his own sense of balance in contemporary architecture can be observed in his most recent work.…

Sinki Industry Company (hereinafter Sinki Industry) is a manufacturing company that has produced steel office supplies for three decades, and currently operates five merchandise and food and beverage stores in Youngdo of Busan. These spaces are places where individuals recuperate and turn to the existing buildings, and yet it is not easy to recognise their architectural value at only a glance. Nevertheless, Oh Sinwook (principal, Architects Group RAUM) has rediscovered architectural elements from the established spaces of the Sinki Industry, reinterpreting them through a new work of architecture. Let’s follow the journey undertaken by Sinkihaero and come to understand how this site was reconceived and built. Han Garam (Han): Last winter, the café of Sinki Industry, Sinkihaero, opened. Could you briefly introduce this company and their spaces to us? Oh…

The Mokchon Foundation, founded in 2010, has been working on the ‘Current Korean Modern Architecture Archive’ project for more than a decade, archiving oral histories of senior architects. In 2019, the organisation expanded the scope of its interests and published a series entitled ‘The Scene of Contemporary Architecture’ after the release of Power of Doubt. The second segment in the series was released online in March of this year. This 11-episode-film named Ways to draw what you want was produced in collaboration with the film director, Jeong Jae-Eun. The perspective of the film’s director, as well as the decision to draw extensively on archival material, is comprehensible through the on-site montage of contemporary (female) architects practicing their professions and exploring their concerns. Let’s hear from Mokchon Foundation whose activities are…

From Feb. 25 to Apr. 24, Fahrettin Örenli’s solo exhibition ‘City Gene -> Bubble in the Mind’ was held in the Alternative Space LOOP in Seogyo-dong, Seoul. Fahrettin Örenli was born and raised in a small town in eastern Turkey and then moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to experience the heterogeneous cultures between cities. His identity is a key element in the creation of his artwork. The exhibition presented Örenli’s new video, The Gene of Cities (2022). It shows a sperm starting its journey from London, crossing the Eurasian continent, arriving in Seoul and finally bursting out. The video, which lasts about 9 minutes, is a metaphor for the flow and influence of capital between cities. In the drawing series The Organic Cities [made up of ‘us], topographical features are…

Since 2019, the Junglim Foundation has held its Curating Architecture Workshop (CAW) every year. This workshop is a programme for curators, scenographers, graphic designers, and editors to explore curatorial activities which revolve around architecture inside and outside of the museum walls. The first special lecture of CAW 2022 was held on Apr. 14, titled ‘Curator Review’, and was part of a newly initiated program that explores the planning processes behind recently-held architecture and design exhibitions. Pai Hyungmin (professor, University of Seoul) led the discussion by sharing his reflections on how carbon had been reduced in the realisation of ‘Climate Museum: Life and Death of Our Home’. Reused partition walls and exhibition stands – which were decorated with recycled paper and ink-saving prints – were introduced as examples. A video of…

Bang Yukyung (Bang): The Museum of Modern Aluminum Thailand (hereinafter MoMA) is a renovation project of the Thai aluminum company AB&W Innovation Co., Ltd. to create a new headquarters-cum-showroom. What was were the main desires outlined by the client? Jenchieh Hung and Kulthida Songkittipakdee (HAS): MoMA originated as the idea of a group of ambitious clients with the goal of reviving the significance of aluminum in Thailand. When the client approached us about this project, the first request noted with us was, ‘We want a remarkable and impressive building’. At the close of the twentieth-century, Thailand was the largest aluminum manufacturer in Southeast Asia. Its diverse and abundant aluminum profile not only satisfied the local market but were known for their exports to overseas markets. About three decades ago, the…

I’m attracted to the word ‘practitioner’. It sounds more approachable than a professional and more down-to-earth than an architect or artist. I feel that it is more human than broaching the field of the humanities, and I think that it reflects our lived experience more accurately. It is the practitioner’s calling to be able to distinguish between things, and yet I have never wondered to myself, ‘what should I do to define things more closely?’ For most of my career, I have followed my interests in the manner best suited to me. That would explain why my work does not stay the same. What interests and methods am I following and working with at the moment? Min Wusik, after receiving his MArch at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the US…

Architect Min Workshop (Min Wusik) Design team Lee Hyungjoo, Noh Yeonji, Lee Seunghun Location 118, Apgujung-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea Programme neighbourhood facility Site area 643m2 Building area 321m2 Gross floor area 2,646m2 Building scope B4, 6F Height 26m Parking 32 Building to land ratio 49.9% Floor area ratio 240% Structure RC Exterior finishing Armania gold marble, bronze Interior finishing Armania gold marble, granite, tile Structural engineer Teogujo Engineering Construction C&O, Inc. Mechanical and electrical engineer PCM, Inc. Design period Sep. 2018 – Jan. 2020. Construction period Mar. 2020 – Nov. 2021 Client Hanjo, Inc. Designing a rental building on a site of expensive real estate prices always places demands on the maximum usable area. After focusing on the core design to reduce and divide up the shared area to optimise…

OUR LABOUR has grown steadily over the past decade and is expanding its business into the art world. Their work, such as the first exhibition, ‘Human, 7 questions’ at the reopened Leeum Museum of Art, objects within HYBE INSIGHT, and ‘OUR SET: OUR LABOUR × OSANG GWON’ recently presented at Suwon Museum of Art, demonstrate how OUR LABOUR have participated in exhibitions of various identities and range of expertise such as creative groups, space designers, artist, and planner. OUR LABOUR can do anything related to the exhibition format. We met with director Lee Chunghyung, who leads OUR LABOUR, and listened to their story. Han Garam (Han): It has been 10 years since the creation of OUR LABOUR. Please give me a brief introduction to your activities. Lee Chunghyung (Lee): The…

On 8th April, a symposium was held under the theme of ‘The Future of the Namsan Hilton Hotel and the Yangdong Improvement District’ at the Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture. The event, co-hosted by nine institutions including SPACE, the Society of Korean Modern Architecture & Urbanism, the Korea Institute of Registered Architects, the Korea Architects Institute, OPENHOUSE Seoul, WIDE AR, Junglim Foundation, the Korean Institute of Architects, and the Korea Association for Architectural History, attracted many people to both the venue and the live broadcast on YouTube, confirming a heightened public interest in the preservation and use of modern and contemporary urban buildings such as the Hilton Hotel. Here, SPACE publishes not only the findings of the symposium, but also the position taken by IGIS Asset Management who purchased…