Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office / Images courtesy of Luyoun Architects
The Return of the Brick
If the first half of the twentieth-century, from a material perspective, could be described as the era of glass and concrete, then the second half of the twentieth-century was about marking a departure from these materials. The wood and brick used by architects such as Alvar Aalto, Louis Kahn, Sigurd Lewerentz and Kim Swoo Geun posed alternative to glass and concrete. Brick, which was used extensively throughout Korea until the 1980s, was replaced by exposed concrete, dryvit, and metal panels in the 1990s, and so treated as a fad that had long passed. However, from the mid-2000s onwards, brick buildings have begun to appear once again, one by one, and architects such as Hwang Doojin, Lim Dokyun, WISE ARCHITECTURE, SoA have began to gather ground and attention in the architectural community with ‘the return of the brick’.
What made architects begin to use bricks again? What was behind this? This phenomenon can be explained in connection with a global architectural trend. First, the necessity of a ‘weak architecture’. In a considered critique of modern architecture of an extreme character, brought about by the fashion for opaque concrete and transparent glass as ‘strong architecture’, Kengo Kuma proposes instead a ‘weak architecture’ of a semi-transparent surfaces in the combination of finely-cut masonry and wood of a certain physicality. Second, the introduction of pixelated architecture. The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) creates architecture that takes on forms that vary in liberal manner between the regular and the irregular by combining ‘pixels’, presented by moving residential units or building modules in various ways. This direction compensates for the difficulty of constructing curved walls in irregular architecture, despite its attractive form, by adopting the method of making curved surfaces via combination of regular-shaped pixel units. Third, the ornamental trend regarding surface. The ornament of surface, which was taboo in modern architecture, has begun to rise in demand. Buildings such as Herzog & de Meuron’s serigraphy method, metal punching method, and Jean Nouvel’s Arabic ornaments are key examples. The return of the brick is possible not only because it satisfies all of these global trends – the semi-transparency of weak architecture, irregularity of pixels, and ornamental surface – but also because it embraces the sensitivities, personalities and human desire for traditional architecture. All of these properties can be found in Lim Dokyun’s brick architecture.
Phenomenological Brick
Lim Dokyun made his debut on the architectural scene at the Korea Young Architect Awards in 2008. However, brick was not his primary material from the outset. In his early works, the colours of modernism are noted. His Younglim Building (2004) follows German masonry architecture, while his Seoya High School Classroom Extension (2007) exhibits influences that can be traced back to Le Corbusier’s pilotis and ribbon windows. It is after his experiments with brick outer layers in the Menem Homme Office (2013) that he completed the Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office (2015).
The neighbourhood of Seogyo-dong in Mapo-gu – which was once populated with brick buildings – is a location that developed as the next central hub in the publication world as publishers left Paju Book City in search of sites with better accessibility and urban vitality. Many publishing companies have now situated themselves here, and these offices all demonstrate some similarities with the palazzos in Florence. This is because they need to design an exterior appearance that is somewhat closed off from the outside, to create a focused and secure environment for design and editing work, while also retaining a working environment that is not too airtight and inflexible. Moreover, the identity of the publishing company as a cultural business needs to be reflected on its exterior, in a way similar to that of the renaissance families who revealed their respectively distinctive characters through closed-off exteriors and welcoming interior spaces.
The publishing offices that Lim Dokyun has designed thus far lie within this context. While expressing something similar to the gradation effect created by the stone-piling method used in Palazzo Medici Riccardi, by increasing the gap space in between the bricks to simulate a weight-reducing effect in his most representative work Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office, he also adopts the strategy of separating the outer layer and the interior as found in Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai. The exterior brick surface made with spacing bonds functions as a sunbreaker for the interior, and the ribbon windows at the centre of the façade block off the impressive exterior of Mecenatpolis while opening the view towards the shady trees at the level slightly above ground. The way the ribbon windows cultivate these views, and the manner in which the windows created by the spacing bonds method manage ventilation, is indebted to the separation of viewing windows and ventilation windows devised by Le Corbusier in his Maisons Jaoul. This building incorporates various stacking methods, such as dress bonds, spacing bonds, facing bonds, and hanging bonds with recycled bricks in pertinent positions. The double wall built with spacing bonds used between the external layer and staircase absorbs sunlight and functions as a semi-transparent layer. This effect can also be found in Lim Dokyun’s Maumsanchaek Office (2020). The sixth floor features a phenomenological landscape with the overlapping of layers created by the double-wall surface made with spacing bonds, a glass curtain wall, a punched metal handrail, a steel wire curtain, and an open-air inner court. The double wall surface with spacing bonds subtly changes the quality of light according to the viewing distance and angle; while blocking out light and sound it also allows them to penetrate so that one may perceive the change in the weather via the sunlight, shadow, rain, and wind. The space functions as a private and concealed mini-universe hidden within an enclosed exterior. This effect reminds one of the double wall with spacing bonds used in Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba Museum, which presents the nature by which light changes over time within the space of the monastery ruins.
A Spiral Staircase, A Moving Centrality
Another important word in Lim Dokyun’s architectural vocabulary is circulation. Both Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office and Maumsanchaek Office have stairways that begin on the exterior. The initial design for the stairs of Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office was a spiral staircase. Because the diagonal staircase became exposed at the façade, as it wrapped around the building twice to compensate for small land size, Lim Dokyun decided to alter it to reflect the current zigzag staircase located at the back. The theme of the spiral staircase is realised in the Maumsanchaek Office. When tracing the history of spiral staircases, one locates its origins in the Ziggurat, the Tower of Babel, and the stairs of Château de Chambord. One now finds them in Le Corbusier’s Museum for Unlimited Growth, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum, and Rem Koolhaas’s The Netherlands Embassy in Berlin. However, it is very uncommon to find a spiral staircase that connects all the way from the basement (multipurpose hall) to a seventh floor rooftop terrace, as found in the Maumsanchaek Office. Upon entering the metal gates and ascending the stairs, one views the urban landscape through the openings on the brick external wall with its spacing bonds finish. As one continues up the stairs along this wall, one can experience a delicate exchange of light and shadow. Here, the bricks function as the ‘words in a book’, and the ‘content of a book’ is revealed as one takes a stroll up the stairs and phenomenological landscapes unfold. The staircases of Eunhaengnamu Publishing Co. Office and Maumsanchaek Office function as walking trails and terraces that open out towards the city. While the exterior may appear simple, the topological spiral staircase forges a relationship between architecture and the city, and while the brick wall appears to cut off the surroundings, it allows the urban landscape to permeate. By having the lower part of the stairs used as restroom and storage space, all its spatial and functional aspects are satisfied.
The stairs and entrances of Lim Dokyun are very detailed. By redesigning the first floor staircase of Sahoipyoungnon Office Remodeling (2020), one can look above to the second floor from the entrance, and one can look down to the entrance from the second floor staircase. By using stairs that retreat backwards slowly in Dongyang Books Office (2019), one can gaze down to the stairs of the floor below. After entering the main entrance of Seoya High School Dormitory (2007) and making a right-hand turn, beneath a high ceiling height created by clearing out two floors, one meets a brightly-lit staircase which one has to enter and make a U-turn in the reverse direction in order to enter the Seoya High School Gymnasium (2013). Such compression and expansion of space and light in these detailed sequence compositions display his grasp of the vocabulary of modern architecture.
Spirality possesses both dynamism and centrality; I mean the dynamic centrality that continuously moves outward and yet draws back towards a centre. Lim Dokyun explains this property in terms of a golden ratio division across the entire site. An ammonite-like spiral is obtained by applying the golden ratio division, and this method is also used in his mass positionings.
From Plane to Mass
Lim Dokyun describes his building as a mass. He describes Seoya High School Gymnasium, Maumsanchaek Office, and The Forest Books Office (2021) as three individual masses placed on the site. The fact that he approaches his architecture not as surface compositions but as mass positioning reveals his transition from a modern architectural vocabulary that focuses on surface division and composition to a more contemporary architectural vocabulary that seeks to avoid such surface divisions. This shift is particularly noticeable in his works from around 2010. Ever since he freed himself from surface divisions, he seeks the use of bricks to create a mass-like sensation. He divides a mass where surface divisions are required, and he draws upon methods that will draw light through the gaps created between. In Dongyang Books Office, which is built on a triangular site, Lim Dokyun avoids surface division while dividing the mass into numerous parts, in a manner reminiscent of Kim Swoo Geun’s Gumi Art Center (1989). The circulation that passes through the gap between the divided masses is also similar to Kim Swoo Geun’s Samtoh (1977).
Another alternative method that Lim Dokyun nominates to create the sensation of mass is that of the louver. The louvers used on the façades of Sahoipyoungnon Office Remodeling and Dongyang Books Office are tools employed to avoid surface divisions. It is common to see architects such as Herzog & de Meuron and Peter Zumthor, who wish to emphasize physicality and mass while avoiding surface divisions, use louvers as one of their possible solutions.
The three masses that compose Seoya High School Gymnasium have respectively different directions, like the sails of a windmill, and their interior windows and skylights are also opened in respectively different directions as well. These positionings and openings are not random but a way of balancing out the various different directionalities in terms of force like the sails of a windmill. This method, which Lim Dokyun describes in terms of that of Mondrian, can also be substituted in the language of De Stijl as the method of ‘dynamic equilibrium’. This method resonates with Peter Zumthor’s interior walls of Kolumba Museum, Kunsthaus Bregenz, and Therme Vals, which seek both dynamism and centrality, and a connection between this dynamic equilibrium and the spiral circulation can also be found.
While Lim Dokyun’s buildings appear disinterested in the city because of its ‘politely rejecting’ stance, in them one can discover however a detailed layout of phenomenological landscapes between the topological circulations. His architecture inherits the modern vocabularies of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Alvar Aalto, but more than this it forms connection with the contemporary swiss architecture of Peter Zumthor, Livio Vacchini, and Jacques Herzog, and also reinterprets the vocabulary of Kim Swoo Geun. When seen in light of the architectural story that has yet to unfold, the works of his career to date will probably only count as its preface. (written by Chang Yongsoon / edited by Bang Yukyung)
Maumsanchaek Office’s staircase
Interior view of Seoya High School Gymnasium / Images courtesy of Luyoun Architects
The sixth floor of Maumsanchaek Office
