SPACE December 2024 (No. 685)
Is There No Alternative?▼1: ‘Labyrinths Forum: Mannerist, Schizophrenia, Citations’
From left Suh Jaewon, Kim Kwangsoo, Kim Hyoyoung ©Park Jiyoun
As Labyrinths, a magazine dedicated to discovering and documenting contemporary Korean architectural discourse, was published in Oct. under the theme of ‘References and Citations’, and a connected forum was held at Junglim Foundation on Nov. 12, with authors Kim Kwangsoo (principal, studio_K_works), Suh Jaewon (principal, aoa architects), Kim Hyoyoung (principal, KHYarchitects) as panelists and Choi Wonjoon (professor, Soongsil University) as moderator. Choi Wonjoon began by explaining why the forum had been organised by the three architects, stating that ‘If there is an architecture that focuses on sensual apprehension and abstraction to provide new experiences, it is an architecture that seeks to communicate by referencing and citing the past in a concrete way.’ While remarking that the two trends are not mutually exclusive and that both aspects can be combined within a single work of architecture, he opened the forum by stating that the work of the architects participating in this forum would lean towards the latter. The forum consisted of presentations by the architects, followed by a question and answer session. The following is an interpretation of each architect’s work based solely on the content of the forum: Kim Kwangsoo perceives the predicaments of the members of society and works them out either by imitating them or by adding haehak to his works; Suh Jaewon embraces or satirises the architectural reality associated with the capitalist system, which is inevitable in the present era; Kim Hyoyoung practices with an awareness of the attitude of citation, acknowledging references and conditions in a way that arouse emotions, narratives, and so on, while sometimes also choosing to play with references and citations. Although their interpretations of reality and context are different, their works are connected by their use of references and citations as a means of embracing reality and that fragmentation can be found in their forms. Kim Kwangsoo, who gave the first presentation, detailed the predicament of the times as captured as an architect by interpreting them through the terms Capitalist Realism, Retromania, and Foreverism, relating them to a series of architectural projects as well as to his own works. In the 1960s, when Yeouido was undergoing massive development centred on civil engineering projects, architecture played a role in spatialising a utopian vision of the future. As time has passed, however, Korea and the world at large have been filled with a mistrust of the future and have shown a tendency to look backward rather than seeking the reasons or motives for moving forward. This is the main thesis of Retromania (2014), but he goes further and borrows the language of Foreverism (2024) to interpret our present challenges, noting that the past is constantly reiterated and transformed in the present, so that it remains forever in the present. According to him, architecture has also responded to society’s need to materialise the past and memory, and there is also a tendency to repeat the same word in self-reference. On the other hand, he suggested that if there was an era in modernism dominated by projects that marked a transition from the concrete and conceptual to the abstract, there is now a branch of architecture dedicated to making that moves from the abstract, based on the abstract working systems of digital abstract space (geographic information system, CAD, etc.), to the concrete. This has led to a preoccupation with materiality and character, as opposed to the past when form was of primary importance. As a consequence, he questioned whether the concrete was true concrete. Mark Fisher, whom Kim Kwangsoo also referenced at this point, also pointed to the phenomenon of breaking the state of Capitalist Realism, in which the imagination is constrained by capitalism, through ‘hauntologie’▼2. Kim Kwangsoo has a propensity to relate his diagnosis of society to his works. For instance, Hapcheon Movie Theme Park (2014) is a playful imitation of modern buildings with an awareness of retro sensibility, and Dalo Literature Museum is Dalo Literature Museum (2009) is an exhibit of the literal representation of the words Dalo Literature Museum as seen from an aerial photograph, which critiques the phenomenon of tautology. Suh Jaewon then drew attention to the fact that extreme capitalism has put individuals in a double bind, and that this situation creates mental health pressures. The methodologies of appropriating them in an architectural manner include satire, schizophrenic thinking, and the state of being differentiated. Satire is a method of embracing capitalism rather than resigning, abandoning, and simply accepting it, while schizophrenic thinking and the state of being differentiated are contrasted with the ‘paranoid type who tries to integrate and carry all the events of the past and desperately collects 10 billion KRW’▼3. For example, in the petit house cheongun (2024), he attached mushroom details – which were too large and heavy for a human to handle – to the front, fragmenting the interior of the first floor with various materials, and actively accepted and gave variations when errors occur during the construction process. Such an attitude can be found throughout his work, bringing the mushroom finish, a cliché in Korean architecture and a cheap material, to the front and making it ‘visible again’ by increasing the cost of installation. His attitude is also a method of ‘spilled or clumsy totality’ that leaves room for connection rather than complete control, as well as a method of questioning the role of the architect in the context of Korean architecture, pointing to the excessive demand for a level of completeness in relation to the cost of construction. Lastly, Kim Hyoyoung introduced his own architectural practice, noting that it is impossible not to draw references and citations. His first project after opening his own practice, Ulsan Seaside Wall House (2015), was designed to maximise the sea view, as requested by the client. In addition, the client’s own experience of undergoing surgery for laryngeal cancer and the passing of his father overlapped, recalling Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich. After this experience, Kim Hyoyoung said that referentiality, which builds the narrative and character of architecture through empathy, became one of his methodologies. Another methodology is to cite ‘quotation marks’, where quotation marks here refer to the needs of various peripheral parties, such as the client and capital, and in his projects they reveal themselves as tiled roof, baseball, and so on. In the question and answer session that followed, critic Hyun Myungseok, referring to Kim Kwangsoo’s self-description in the text as ‘mannerist’, asked how Mannerism could communicate with the general public if it was a highly elite language that could only be understood within the traditional grammar of its domain. Kim Kwangsoo replied that even if the public did not understand the context of mannerist remarks, they would not remain ignorant, but they could determine their own like or dislike of the work, and that Michelangelo’s work would have been recognised by the public of his time even if they did not understand the context. In a related question, Chon Jaewoo (principal, HYPERSPANDREL) mentioned the language of haehak, satire, and playfulness in the texts of the three architects, and said that humour could only be considered to have served its purpose when the other person responded to it, and that it would be difficult to get an immediate response from the recipient because the work of the three architects needed to explain the context. Suh Jaewon responded by saying that, strictly speaking, his work is architecture with popular appeal as an element, not an architecture for the public. However, this statement can be read as a statement limited to the methodology of satire, as Suh Jaewon emphasised the concept of ‘kawaii (cuteness)’, which disarms people, and that he valued the importance of architecture at a stage where the architect can be satisfied while embracing the needs of the client. On Nov. 19, the second related forum was held with Kim Sara (principal, Diagonal Thoughts), Lee Chihoon (partner, SoA), Chon Jaewoo, and architecture columnist Bae Yunkyung, and Labyrinths plans to publish three editions a year.
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1 Subtitle of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2008) by Mark Fisher.
2 Where Mark Fisher used to describe hauntologie as ‘nostalgia for an unattainable future’, Kim Kwangsoo offered his own interpretation as ‘experiences that deviate from the abstract and the concrete’ during a discussion of the architectural tendency to move from the abstr`act to the concrete.
3 Suh Jaewon, ‘Schizophrenia and Hyper-referential Architecture’, Labyrinths 1 (Oct. 2024), p. 41.
‘달로문학관은 달로문학관입니다’(2009) 도면 Drawing for Dalo Literature Museum is Dalo Literature Museum (2009)
