H-Sang Seung

After training under South Korea's foremost contemporary architect, Kim Swoo Geun, Seung established the firm of IROJE architects & planners in 1989. His practice designs residential, religious, educational, and public facilities. His Sul Jol Dang residence was selected as one of South Korea's 10 best architectural works of the 20th century. In 2002, he was the first architect to be named Artist of the Year by Korea National Museum of Contemporary Art, where he held a one-man show. His most recent large-scale project involves the master plan and coordination of Book City, a new cultural community of 160 buildings on a 150-hectare site underway in the Seoul suburb of Paju City by the South Korean publishing and media industries (scheduled for completion mid-2004). He teaches at Seoul University and is a visiting professor at the University of North London. His published works include Beauty of Poverty and City of Wisdom/ Architecture of Wisdom. Web site: www.iroje.com (Korean and English)

VOID — an urban poet's masterful use of ma

In thoroughly modernized, contemporary South Korea, a ripe indigenous creative culture is beginning to bloom. It is evident in the works of architect H-Sang Seung.

Architecture by nature is a creative outgrowth of the relationship that entwines culture, economics, society, and daily life. History is also part of the mix, perceptible even in design infused with new breath. And a connection to place anchors the foundation of each creative work.

Seung's architecture exudes that spirit of place and space. He believes that an innately human realm extends beyond architecture that is purely functional. He calls this space VOID.

Seung used Corten steel on the exterior and interior (left) of Welcomm City, headquarters of the South Korean advertising agency Welcomm (completed in 2000). Corten, if left untreated, will oxidize over time to form its own protective patina of rust. The passage of time enhances its beauty.

Pristine residential space designed by H-Sang Seung perches surprisingly atop his Corten steel Lock Museum, completed in 2003.

Admittedly, amid the clamor of modernization it is sometimes difficult to understand the value of things that stand in opposition to function. But it is essential to extricate ourselves from the forces and din of daily life and recall the value of architecture rooted in tradition. How necessary to life are things that nourish the spirit? Experience Seung's architecture and the answer becomes clear.

Architecture must function within an urban context. This, too, is clear in Seung's work. Walking through the streets of Seoul, one instantly recognizes his architecture. His shapes meld into the surrounding cityscape yet they catch the eye with their masterful use of Corten steel. Commonly used in the West in the construction of bridges and other engineering projects, Corten in Seung's hands becomes a whole different thing. I have never seen it used so delicately on architectural facades. Seung thoroughly exploits the material to serve his designs.

Corten respects history. The red-brown tones of old brick buildings remaining on the perimeter of Seoul chronicle the city's past. Corten in tone and texture imprints itself on the memory of a city. It fits comfortably into the urban fabric and extends a gracious greeting to its neighbors. Over time, it gathers rust.

Through daring use of Corten for exterior walls, Seung's architecture can express diverse moods within the urban environment and these expressions show gentle changes as time passes. There are days when it reflects sunlight and days when it glowers in the rain. Each expression is recorded in the visitor's mind. His architecture marks time amid ceaseless change and transformation. It submits itself to nature and the vestiges of time are recorded on it face.

Translucent shoji-like panels surround the residence at the Lock Museum. Gracefully flowing spaces illustrate Seung's mastery of ma, the concept symbolically linking humans, time, and space as one. The living and dining spaces are linked to the bedrooms above by a floating staircase.

While the West seems to draw a line between man and nature, the East idealizes the individual living within nature. The East utilizes the power of nature (as when Japanese devise shishi-odoshi of bamboo and water to drive birds away from cultivated field). Man and nature are co-creators? belief seen in Seung's work. It assimilates by entering and melding with its urban context. It establishes independence through mutual acknowledgement and respect. Perhaps Seung—the urban poet—sees Corten steel as an eloquent vocabulary for describing the significance of meaning in merged opposites: city and space, function and anti-function, matter and non-matter, artificial and real.

The same aesthetic transcends his exterior walls: His interior spaces offer glimpses of melding elements as well. Structured like a small city, his volumes and spaces for alternating functions are woven together. Anti-functional spaces connecting one space to another are used extravagantly. Spaces with undefined functions, like the plazas of a city, are sprinkled throughout.

In his Lock Museum, completely different functions—offices, restaurant, galleries, and residence—harmonize as one in a well-structured order. Perhaps this is because of Seung's masterful use of ma (the concept linking humans, time, and space) flowing like the wind through his buildings, an element that only the spiritually nourished can appreciate. It is important not to define the world only in terms of "absolutes" but to appreciate, too, such inexact elements as light and shadow. The work of this one architect quietly tells us that the time to change our view of things has come.

Tokyo gallery exhibition "East Asian Architecture: Beyond the Border"

1-24-3 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
11 AM to 6 PM (7 PM on Fridays)
Closed Sundays, Mondays, and holidays
Admission free
Tel. 03-3402-1010
www.toto.co.jp/gallerma (English and Japanese)

Articles from the 2003 AUTUMN issue:

• Contemporary Anime: Koji Yamamura - Tabaimo
• Ryokan Basics: 10 Exclusive Ryokan - The Yukata and the Bath

Kateigaho International Edition Issues:

2005 SUMMER - 2005 SPRING - 2005 WINTER

2004 AUTUMN - 2004 SUMMER - 2004 SPRING - 2004 WINTER

2003 AUTUMN - INAUGURAL ISSUE