condenCITY_106 contrasts in time

photo credit: Wiki commons (Sungnyemun), Dongdaemun Design Plaza (e.reeder)

I was recently reminded of 'Seoul time' for two reasons- the first being the drawn-out and ongoing construction of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza project by Zaha Hadid. Under construction now for more than 4 years and still with seemingly much to be done (and without the benefit of inside information on the interior completion status). I asked myself "what in Seoul today takes more than 4 years to construct" and the answer is nearly nothing- except for the recent completion of Sungnyemun (Seoul's historic South Gate). The South Gate was under construction for a little more than 5 years after having sustained severe damage in an arsonists attempt to burn it down. 

These lengthy construction times seem the exception in Seoul now. Perhaps here are where the similarities end- as I recently watched for a moment, workers at Dongdaemun Design Plaza shuffle precariously across scaffolding. Pieces that have been erected with today's technologies and tools and the benefit of industrialized know-how, so-to-speak. Yet, the irregularity of regularity has drawn out time in Dongdaemun. Its missing 'facade teeth' revealing the intensive calculating process of fitting together a shapely 'future,' to the detriment of vast resource consumption. It's concealed steel skeleton testament to this. 

At odds is the South Gate having been rebuilt with hand labor and traditional technique. Stones, hand-split with hammer imprecision. The ancient times of building remembered in low tech and resource efficiency. Five years of labor in reconstructing 600 years of history. 

Both Architectures are Seoul in today's time, at opposing polar corners of the city.

condenCITY_105 suburb

When suburbs come to mind we often think of sprawling, low lying expanses rarely breaking three stories in height, if that. Admittedly, this view is a narrow American perspective, one that resonates in my memory at least. Suburbs the world over have different projections and forms. Cast off's of dense urban conditions and unattainable economics (for some). Suburbs now reach new heights at thirty floors up and counting- home to the new and rising middle classes of the far east. The tabula rasa of western expanses have extended upward. 

Sky is the next frontier.

condenCITY_104 opposing cities

A city built on preserving its yesterday time, one with little waver from the past and its roots deeply entrenched in memory. Expectations and demands suspend it as a place of permanence- if there ever was such a thing in the modern metropolis. 

A city opposite, constructed not of yesterday but only of progress. A stations stop away yields more of the same replicated identity. Haste has no time for quality- after all, the notion of build quick and rebuild faster are now foregone conclusions. The new city is more temporary than ever before. This is the future of manufacturing cities. 

The products we now live in. 

Gallery MOA 2013 Exhibition

 Eric Reeder

 re: PUBLIC 2, 50x50 cm,  

 Mixed paper, Acrylic, Graphite, Ink on Bristol Board, 2012

Our public (space) is personal. We construct and reconstruct it daily in our lives of experience. This in turn informs our work as architects of the built environment. Public in Seoul is something different; malleable, more so than most other cities. Public loses ground to private claims and is neither public nor private- lost in a evolutionary state of murky gray. Public is compromised, negotiated and forever curious.

Exhibition dates:    2013. 3. 1(금) - 3. 30(일)

Opening Reception : 2013. 3. 1(금) 오후 6시

Gallery MOA 3월 전시보도자료
www.heyrimoa.com 
Heyri Art Valley, Kyunki-do
Korea

.................................................................................................................................

2013 국제 건축가 드로잉전 “ESsense_감각의 본질”

전시기간 :    2013. 3. 1(금) - 3. 30(일)

Opening Reception : 2013. 3. 1(금) 오후 6시

전시분야 :    드로잉 

참여작가 :    김미상/Kim Mi Sang, 정수진/Jung Su Jin, 임지택/Lim Ji Taek, 

제갈엽/Jeagal Youp(Eric), 최두남/Choi Du Nam, 박준호/Park Joon Ho, 

문훈/Moon Hoon, 우경국/Woo Kyung Kook, 방철린/Bang Chul Rin, 구영민/Koo Young Min, 전인호/Jun In Ho, 김인철/Kim In Cheurl, Eric Reeder, Santiago Porras Alvarez

기획       :우경국

코디네이터 :  전인호

후원 :  한국건축가협회, 새건축사 협회,

협찬 :  하우징 플러스, 온맘건설, 제이엠건설,

갤러리 MOA 에서는 2013년 3월 기획전으로 ‘ESsense_감각의본질“ 이라는 주제로 국제 건축가 드로잉전을 개최한다. 이번 전시에는 국내 유명 건축가 13인, 그리고 스페인, 미국 등 외국건축가 2인을 초청하여 건축가들이 평소 표현하던 건축의 개념적 스케치가 아니라 주제와 같이 본질적인 감각을 바탕으로 사물의 현상은 물론 각자의 철학적 사유를 새로운 형식의 드로잉으로 표출 해 내고 있다. 이는 기존의 미술이나 조각에서 보여주는 밑그림과 는 달리 현상에 대한 건축가들의 또 다른 시각을 체험할 수 있는 좋은 기회라 생각한다.

전시 기간 중에는 2회에 걸쳐 세미나를 개최한다. 세미나에서는 Essence(본질)+sense(감각)에 대한 의미론적 해석과 그 영향이 미술과 건축 등의 장르 속에서 어떻게 해석되어 지고 변화 되어 왔는지를 발표하고, 주제와 관련하여 건축가 개인이 표현하고 있는 드로잉 기법과 의미, 그리고 새로운 가능성에 대한 토론의 장이 될 것이다.

특히 감성이 서로 다른 국내외 건축가들이 다수 참여함으로서 보다 풍부하고 다양한 드로잉의 차이를 경험하게 될 것으로 기대한다.

갤러리 MOA

관장  이양호

전시 서문

제2회 국제 건축가 드로잉전의 주제는 Essence(본질) 와 Sense(감각)을 합성한 “ESsense/감각의 본질”로 기존의 구상과 코드화 되어있는 현상으로서의 예술로부터 벗어나고자 하는 취지에서 시작한 것이다. 인간에게는 5감(시각, 청각, 후각, 미각, 촉각)이 있다. 이러한 감각은 신체의 적합자극에 의해 흥분하고 작동한다. 다시 말해 인간의 자극 인지는 이 오감에 의해서만 일어난다. 기존의 예술이 재현의 논리에 주로 의미를 두었다면, 이번 전시는 감각의 본질을 통한 재현, 즉 비가시적 힘과 생성을 표현하는 “감각형상”을 표출 시키고자 하는 것이다.

질 들레즈의 회화론에서도 감각형상에 대하여 프란시스 베이컨의 작품을 대상으로 하여  “감각 자체를 그리는 것” 또는 “그림의 대상으로서의 감각“으로 설명한 바 있다. 이는 추상도 구상도 아닌 새로운 표현형식으로 리오타르의 figural(형상성)를 통해 분명하게 표시하고 있다. 즉 신체에 의하여 조건 지워지고 또한 이러한 흥분과 히스테리의 힘에 의한 창조적 발작현상은 새로운 예술 작품을 태동 시키게 된다는 것이다. 굳이 들레즈의 이론을 바탕으로 하지 않아도 우리에게 내재 되어있는 감각을 기본으로 비재현적 형상개념의 작업들을 건축가들에 의하여 자유롭게 표현될 수 있도록 기획한 것이다.

글 _드로잉 전 기획 건축가 우경국 

Press Release:

MOA Gallery March 2013, the international Architects drawing exhibition opens, “ESsense: sense of nature” as the subject for the special exhibitions gallery. Thirteen domestic architects and two invited foreign architects will participate. The exhibit challenges common illustrative expressions practiced by the Architect and the construction of conceptual sketches. Within this an exhibition identifying the intrinsic sense of self, as well as the phenomenon of philosophical reason expressed within new mediums of drawing. A seminar will be held two times during the exhibition period. Seminar ‘In Essence’ (essence) and sense (sense of) for semantic interpretations and its impact has been identified in the genre of art and architecture. Open interpretations with respect to the subject matter, drawing techniques and meaning, will be presented for discussion. Different sensibilities with respect to ‘drawing’ reveal diverse approaches from participating architects.

condenCITY_103 standing in wait

Rare
empty without alteration
out of place it seems without
occupation.

Like a life sealed up and hidden
-and maybe there is truth in that-
in contrast to the exhibitions
next door
down the street
pervasive
as it is everywhere

to open is to become stuck
in a daily exposure of routine.

Seoul is rarely so pure in
face.

condenCITY_102 architecture touching-down

Masonry construction never really seems to be in fashion. As I comb through the latest archives of recognized architectural splendor, most of which glistens with sleek metal-fabricated perforations and glazed uniformity; masonry, on the other hand waits for its moments of recognition. To be reinvented in what seems aesthetically pleasing at any given time. It is constantly being rethought in how it touches-down and binds with earth; how architecture becomes heavy in weight and mass. Its moment to shine so-to-speak will happen again as it cyclically seems to surface from time to time, we know by history. There are notable practitioners- works today- perhaps better left working away under the currents of popular architecture culture. 

I have written of the late Korean modern architect Kim Swoo Guen before. I recently paid visit by chance to a lessor known work of his on the campus of Duksung Women's University in northern Seoul. I had not heard or read of this particular building before- home to the art and architecture department of this small private university. It was designed and constructed in the early 1980's. Sized to accommodate modest combined departments in the creative studio arts and environmental design practices. It's layout defines a common central court. Elevated above the surrounding campus grounds by dimensions of brick masonry, the court rises in unit steps. 

Masonry architecture can be hostage to dimensions fixed by the very nature of the unitized material itself. Freedom to explore and transform happen in how the material is segmented and given pause. How masonry parts ways with the ground, in being lifted as if to reveal an underside passage. How it contrasts with voided spaces or other 'soft' material surfaces. Swoo Guen manages all of this within the college; a balancing act on raised heavy ground, seamless with the very walls that define it. 

Kim Swoo Guen's architecture, as in much of his work, was defined by its very material compositions and notably his creations in brick. 

Architecture can touch.

Mediating between back (and forward)

condenCITY_101 manufactured city 2.0

Seoul's foundations are horizontal in contrast.

Outstretched in courtyard configurations, bound by activity and the passing, progressing city. The neighborhood factories of post war boom are fading- but there are few that remain as patchwork, still stitched in a quilt of worker districts such as Seongsu-dong. They are wrapped and tangled within and guided by the very productions that sustain them. They may disappear in the not so distant coming years, perhaps displaced to remote borders of the cities edge, while some will just disappear. 

Foundations to be covered in vertical sameness. 

condenCITY_100 stick-on city

At surface, the faces of rising eastern capitalist cities are peel and stick: 

Facades quick to arrive and disappear under false hopes and dematerialized dreams. 
Patterns mesmerize in slight deception and upon closer inspection the mask comes off.

What remains solely are shells of anticipation...

and the emptiness of borrowed time.

Remembering Lebbeus Woods

Images courtesy of and sampled from ARCHITECTURE online- public tribute comments.



Rising Waters_ departing lives ---Oct 2012 NYC

Remembering Lebbeus Woods

1940-2012

I first remember meeting Lebbeus Woods in 1995 at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the College of Environmental Design. He had been invited to give a public lecture in Boulder and studio critique for forth year students in the college.  Like a few of my classmates at the time we were impressionably arrested by his gift for making the impossible- in brief, his drawings were mesmerizing and beyond static visions of our world and the architecture we assume daily. His visionary 'Architecture' indeed had boundless possibilities, both in how one speaks of it- as Lebbeus did- and how we render it as conflicting extensions of our tangled world; political, social, poetic, and beyond.

His ungrounded creations captured what it meant to 'make' and for me an essential example I still impart on my students today in lectures that I give. His work was deep, inspiring and cross generational.

"..Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules.”  LW, New York Times interview, 2008.

His works will continue to cross generations uncharted, well past these lives we have now. 




Other tributes

Steven Holl remembers Lebbeus
bldgblog: Lebbbeus Woods
NY Times tribute