Restoring and Revising Architecture: French Embassy in Korea: How a Modern Monument Comes Forth into the Contemporary City

SPACE October 2023 (No. 671) ​ 

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The historical importance of a master’s work often makes it difficult to establish an appropriate relationship between the old and new in a renovation project. Renzo Piano hid from Le Corbusier (Gatehouse and Monastery, Ronchamp), Gwathmey Siegel pretended to not notice Frank Lloyd Wright (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Renovation and Addition), and Rem Koolhaas outright devoured Mies van der Rohe (IIT McCormick Tribune Campus Center). The New Construction and Renovation (2015 – 2023) of the French Embassy in Korea (1962) was bound to be demanding, as the original work is often considered not only the best work of Kim Chung-up, the renowned master of Korean modern architecture, but also one of the great masterworks in Korean history, evaluated as the starting point and epitome of our modern architecture which incorporated the attributes of tradition into modern form. The roof of the building – a boldly curving piece of exposed concrete – is most famous as an abstract take on a traditional tiled roof, but the overall layout that divided the required programmes into three buildings – Staff Office, Ambassador’s Office, Ambassador’s Residence – to create a dramatic temporal experience was also consistent with chae in traditional architecture. It embodies features of our tradition in further ways, such as landscaping using Korean-style stone figures and trees, decorations derived from traditional patterns, a daecheongmaru-like space, and a method of illumination using reflections from the floor and eaves. However, it has undergone many modifications over the years. The characteristic roof of the Ambassador’s Office was replaced in the mid-1970s with a flat stepped roof, and the structural tension was lost when the four columns under the roof were quadrupled and the base pilotis space was converted into an interior. The Staff Office partial demolitions and expansions left only a zigzag-shaped slab like a vestigial organ, and, as a result, the only building that retained its original appearance was the Ambassador’s Residence, but in truth only its frontal part. It is ironic that we have considered a work that lost its original form as one of our greatest national masterpieces, but perhaps it was only natural since the votes have long relied upon photographs and memory because the buildings were closed to the public. In short, the French Embassy in Korea was a masterpiece with no connection to the present. In 2015, the French government held a design competition by invitation to accommodate the programmes that had grown four times, calling for a comprehensive update of Kim’s architecture rather than the more ad hoc interventions thus far.

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Architecture vs. Preservation

Though the competition earmarked some existing buildings for preservation and therefore the available plot was quite limited, the invited architects of the design competition submitted a wide range of proposals, often with idiosyncratic forms that actively challenged the formal attributes set by Kim Chung-up. Interpreting Koolhaas’s position that ‘Preservation is Overtaking Us,’ Jorge Otero-Pailos differentiated between practices of architecture and preservation.^▼1 Traditionally, architecture has been regarded as the creation of new forms. However, unique form can no longer guarantee architecture’s cultural value because it is time-limited according to the logic of the market economy, which always encourages changes in taste. While the power of flamboyant forms have peaked in the works of so-called starchitects and expired with the financial crisis of 2008, architecture can now sustain its value through preservation’s interpretation and reinterpretation. In order to fulfill its role as an act of cultural mediation that highlights existing architecture and its environments, and renders their meaning more contemporary, works of preservation need to restrain their own forms to become a ‘pedestal’ calling attention to the artwork. Thus, preservation is fundamentally different from the work of architecture, which sees new form as the essence of creation. Here, preservation is not just about the renovation of heritage, as most architectural projects have an urban, social, and historical context to interpret and to which to respond. 

Following this distinction, the winning proposal by Yoon Taehoon (principal, SATHY) and Cho Minsuk (principal, MASS STUDIES) approached the project from the point of preservation, while other participants perceived it as a work of architecture. Their goal was to revive the architectural value of the French Embassy in Korea in the present-day, firstly by defining Kim’s architecture clearly and secondly by encouraging this building to reveal a present-day pertinence and to be widely appreciated. Specifically, it was to restore the impaired Ambassador’s Office and return it to its original form, thereby establishing it as Kim Chung-up’s original realm alongside the Ambassador’s Residence,^▼2 and to add a low-profile extension that will underline the value of Kim’s realm and enhance its modern performance. The winning proposal was also unique in that it did not give any modern interpretation of the Ambassador’s Office. Employing a strategy of montage, the old and new are placed in juxtaposition without blending into each other―each part retains its own character and produces new meaning through their interrelationship. 

Formless Form

To accommodate the increased program space, the new extension was planned as the combination of a horizontal mass, La Jetée,^▼3 and a vertical mass, La Tour, at the location of the Staff Office, which had no preservation value whatsoever due to its extensive deformation. Steel and wood (later replaced by UHPC panels with wood-patterned surface due to stricter legislation) were chosen as primary materials for the extension to contrast with Kim Chung-up’s exposed concrete, and its entire surface was painted black to reduce its presence. In terms of form, the restrained composition of a rectangular system with uniform modules was adopted to differentiate it from the expressive forms of the existing buildings.

This established a clear boundary between the old and the new, but the fundamental goal of the new part was to coexist while suppressing its own form in order to emphasize the value of the old part. Here, formal restraint or formlessness, does not mean the absence of any distinctive characteristics, but rather the absence of an independently recognised form. Therefore, in the unique world set up by Kim, accepting his formal DNA was a way to remain unnoticed. Many compositional features were extracted from Kim’s design, such as the height and modules of La Jetée, the axes of La Jetée and La Tour, the two buildings’ horizontal and vertical contrast, and the overall triptych structure maintained by tying together the two buildings with the same formal principle and colour. Characteristic expressive elements of Kim were also added. The shared component of Kim’s three buildings was a horizontal roof which reinterprets the deep eaves of traditional architecture in a modern way, and this formal language is continued as La Jetée’s wide canopy over the entrance and La Tour’s louvers added to its projected structure on the elevation (also a tectonic feature often used by Kim). Weld marks on the surface of steel frame were a conceptual application of the rough treatment of exposed concrete in the original building. The rooftop garden is an element shared by Staff Office and La Jetée, but it is rather the result of a rational approach to create a flat area for exchange on a sloping site than of a one-way influence, and this proves that, although known for his intense formal gestures, Kim also responded very thoroughly to the programmes and given conditions.

While Kim Chung-up abstracted elements from traditional Korean architecture, what Cho Minsuk and Yoon Taehoon abstract is Kim’s work. They closely studied Kim’s architecture and extracted and applied its principles and elements to the new extension, whose form and colour were suppressed. This made La Jetée and La Tour settle into the fabric of the French Embassy in Korea, while relaying our attention to the existing Ambassador’s Office and Ambassador’s Residence by providing a new viewing environment. By adding Kim’s expressive elements, the new extension is not an object that congratulates itself, but neither is it a mere backdrop―it has a presence somewhere in between, a supporting role that highlights the main character rather than a ‘pedestal’ mentioned by Otero-Pailos. This is not a conceptual setting, but one that has a clear phenomenological effect. When viewed from the front, the horizontally extruded La Jetée leads the eye through a vanishing point to the Kim Chung-up Pavilion (the new name of the restored Ambassador’s Office), while La Tour supports the dramatic form of the pavilion’s curved roof by its stark and dark body behind.

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ⓒChoi Wonjoon 

Into the City

However, this formal restraint of the new extension is quite different from what Kim Chung-up originally intended for the spot. The original Staff Office has been underappreciated due to its mysteriously bizarre design and excessive alterations,^▼4 but it has a clear compositional character and role as the first building of the triptych. It was often recognised by its sculptural railings and mosaic murals by Youn Myungro and Kim Jonghak, but we also have to pay attention to its self-imposed axis and excessively fragmented form in the plan and section. It is an animated mass of energy which has yet to reach an ordered form, with compositional qualities that are distinctly different from those of the other two buildings―the Ambassador Office with the perfect order of its square plan and identical shape from all four directions, and the Ambassador’s Residence, whose mass is freely organised within the order created by its rectangular floating roof. This sequential organisation corresponds to the principles of first, second, and third composition out of Four Compositions proposed by Corbusier in 1929. While Corbusier’s three compositions are stacked to form the fourth composition exemplified by Villa Savoye (1931), Kim applied them to outbuildings to create a Korean style synthesis based on a clustered composition through which the visitor can experience both indoors and outdoors. Aside from the often noted similarities in formal vocabulary, Corbusier’s influence on Kim is evident in the composition, and here we can also find Kim’s unique vision that goes beyond his master. 

However, the new extension by Cho and Yoon sought to actively respond to the changed external world rather than accept the internal principles of composition established by Kim Chung-up. Unlike in the 1960s, when the variations of the three buildings were fully visible due to the absence of distinctive buildings in the neighbourhood, they are now perceived along with a congested scene of surrounding skyscrapers. Rather than adding another autonomous axis and composition, Cho and Yoon reinforced the internal order by extending axes and modules from Ambassador’s Residence for La Tour and from Ambassador’s Office for La Jetée. They set an orderly backdrop internally so that Kim’s expressive work would not be exposed to and buried by the chaos of a rapidly growing city. 

The design of the new extension also intended to reestablish the embassy’s connection to the city. Whether Kim was initially satisfied with the buildings’ relationship with nature in the embassy’s precincts and the expanse of blue sky, or whether he also intended to establish a relationship with the wider city is a matter of debate, but it is clear that the embassy had an undeniable presence in the city centre at that time. Photographs of the building from Chungjeong-ro taken in the 1960s demonstrate this, as do the memories of astonishment told by many senior architects who recall the moment they first saw the building from the street. However, this sense of presence is long gone due to haphazard development in the surrounding area, and it was necessary to reestablish a coordinated interrelationship with the city. As it is still enclosed by the solid fence of an extraterritorial realm, the solution was to extend the city inward, and the new part, especially La Tour, plays a dual role as a component of the internal organisation with Kim’s buildings and as part of the surrounding city. Its restrained form reinforces its distinction from the more expressive Kim Chung-up on the inside, while creating a mediation with an anonymous city replete with generic buildings, such as apartments and offices on the outside. As a result, the embassy is no longer a monument placed within the confines of a showroom, but has a presence – at least visually – as an urban institution, and has moved from an object known only among architects through photographs to an object that all citizens can encounter in their daily lives in the city, functioning as a local landmark that attest to our modern history. Cho’s additional proposal to create an open cultural space on the empty spot next to the gate is a strategy to further strengthen the embassy’s connection to the city, both spatially and programmatically. 

In an occasion to reevaluate the French Embassy in Korea thirty years after its completion, Kim Kwanghyun (emeritus professor, Seoul National University), while appreciating its aesthetic achievements that resonate with Korean tradition, mentioned that we must recognise that the value of this masterpiece rests on the architect’s romantic formal will rather than dynamic tension with society, technology, and the city that characterised early modern architecture in Europe, and that we have set such work as our foundation of modern architecture.^▼5 Now, another three decades later, Yoon and Cho seem to respond to this through their architecture. While Kim Chung-up responded to the postwar era’s challenge of architectural representation of tradition through original forms, the two architects have reintroduced a deformed and obscured monument to the urban stage, opening up a field of dynamic reinterpretation today, which values relationships over objects and continuity over momentary achievement. Their proposal stands on equal footing with that of Kim Chung-up, even if their forms are less prominent, in that they responded to the values and demands of their times in each era’s most authentic ways.