SPACE February 2025 (No. 687)
SPACE is preparing an archival book, Archiving International Architecture Exhibition at the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 1996 – 2025 (tentative title), as part of the ‘30th Anniversary Archival Research of the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale’, organised by the Arts Council Korea (ARKO). The archive book, scheduled to be published in May 2025, will include interviews with the commissioners of the early exhibitions at the Korean Pavilion, and will be published in a series of SPACE. Through these interviews, SPACE will reconstruct a narrative of the early years of Korean architecture exhibition history centred on the Venice Biennale and reflect on the meaning of the Korean Pavilion as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Date and time 10th of December 2024, 10:00 – 12:00 (KST)
Location Video conferencing (ZOOM)
Interview Kimm Jong Soung honorary chairman, SAC International, Ltd. × Kim Jeoungeun editor-in-chief
Participants Yeo Sunhee, Yu Jiyeon, Choi Hyeju Arts Council Korea, Bang Yukyung, Kim Bokyoung
Recording Kim Hyerin
Data collection Kim Bokyoung
Opening Ceremony of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale in 2002. commissioner Kimm Jong Soung. Images courtesy of Arts Council Korea
Kimm Jong Soung, Commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2002
Kimm Jong Soung was the commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, held from the 7th of September to the 24th of November, 2002. He was the third Korean Pavilion commissioner after Kang Sukwon, the commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the 6th International Architecture Exhibition in 1996 (covered in SPACE No. 686) and Kim Seok Chul (1943 – 2016) of the 6th International Architecture Exhibition in 2000. Belonging to the first generation of Korean architects, Kimm Jong Soung has had a unique career, studying at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), undertaking a 12-year practice in the Office of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, renowned as a modernist master, and succeeding as a professor, associate dean, and interim dean at IIT. When Kimm was appointed as commissioner of the Korean Pavilion in December 2001, he had already made a deep impression on Korean architecture, with significant projects such as Weightlifting Gymnasium for 88 Seoul Olympics (1986), Art Sonje Center (1998), and SK Corporation New Headquarters Building (currently SK Seorin Building, 1999) after he had returned to Korea to take on the project of the Hilton Hotel in Seoul in 1978, and founding SAC International (currently SAC International, Ltd.)
The director of the 8th Architecture Exhibition was Deyan Sudjic, a British architectural design director, and he suggested the theme of ‘Next’. The Golden Lion for the Best Participant in the International Exhibition was awarded to Alvaro Ciza and Golden Lion for Best National Participation to the Netherlands. Kimm Jong Soung exhibited the works of nine architects from seven teams in the Korean Pavilion, based on the premise that the Koreas will be reunified in the next ten years. The works included Community Center Hyeri (Kim Jong-Kyu + Kim Jun Sung), Housing Project for the Paju Book City (Kim Young-Joon), Park + Library (Min Hyunsik + Lee Minah), Gallery + Residence Heyri (Helen Ju-Hyun Park), Memorial Park + Columbarium (Kyu Sung Woo), Park Soo Keun Museum (Yi Jong Ho), and Retail Blocks in Paju Book City (Joh Sung-Yong).
Recently, Kimm Jong Soung has completed five volumes in his architectural photography pilgrimage, Romanesque Architecture (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023), and has organised publication events in Europe, while in Korea, he has continued his efforts for over two and a half years to preserve the lobby and atrium of the Seoul Hilton Hotel (covered in SPACE Nos. 652, 654, 677). In December, SPACE interviewed him online as he currently resides in New York City. As is well known, Kimm Jong Soung, who has a subtle memory, described the circumstances faced by Korean architects who encountered the international stage of the Venice Biennale in the early 2000s by recounting several episodes from that time.
2002년 베니스비엔날레 제8회 국제건축전 한국관 전시도록 표지 (자료제공: 정운주) / Image courtesy of Chung Oonjoo
Commissioner Selection and Pre-visit to Venice
Kim Jeoungeun: In December 2001, you were appointed as the commissioner of the Korean Pavilion for the 8th Architecture Exhibition.▼1 You were running SAC International, at the time, so what do you remember about the nominations and the final result? At that time, architecture exhibitions were held at irregular intervals, and they were not very well known in the Korean architecture community.
Kimm Jong Soung: As I recall, the Korean Institute of Architects nominated me, but as you said, we didn’t even know that the Venice Biennale had an architecture exhibition. I used to hear the news of important films and directors highlighted at the Venice Film Festival, but I first knew about the architecture exhibition when I heard that I was nominated as commissioner.
Kim Jeoungeun: I see. This was only the third participation in the exhibition by Korean architecture, after 1996 (commissioner, Kang Sukwon) and 2000 (commissioner, Kim Seok Chul), so it seems that the exhibition promotion system had not yet been clearly established. How did you set the direction of the exhibition?
Kimm Jong Soung: To be honest, I only started to explore the possibilities when I was notified that I had become a commissioner. I visited Venice in early spring of 2002 to get a feel for the site of the Korean Pavilion designed by Kim Seok Chul. At that time, Byun Junhui helped me a lot, including translation and interpretation in Venice; not only the language, but Byun also provided the information I needed every day, everywhere, during my stay in Venice for a week or two. For example, a meal can be eaten in 20 minutes if time is short. Byun helped me with information that was beyond the grasp of my Italian. First, I met professor Franco Mancuso with Byun, and I really enjoyed listening to him talk about the background of the Korean Pavilion. It was an office in a four-storey building facing a small piazza. We went there around 3 p.m., and we talked for two hours, and then he took us to his favourite bar. In Venice, people always have favourite bars in the piazza adjacent to their residence (laugh). So we had a spritz and talked for another half hour. Please include Byun’s contributions in the archive.
Kim Jeoungeun: Yes, I will! (laugh) Kimm Jong Soung: That’s how I got to know the Venice scene. Kim Seok Chul is a formalist. He marked a circle on the Korean pavilion. It’s a form that imposes a constraint on exhibitions, but he insisted a circle or nothing.
The catalogue of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale in 2002, pp. 30 – 31 (Kyu Sung Woo, Memorial Park + Columbarium) (source: Chung Oonjoo) / Image courtesy of Chung Oonjoo
Director Deyan Sudjic and ‘NEXT’
Kim Jeoungeun: Did you have any communication with the director, Deyan Sudjic, beforehand? In Oral history of Architect, Kimm Jong Soung, you said that it was exceptional that Deyan Sudjic did not convene the commissioners to explain his chosen theme.▼2
Kimm Jong Soung: The first thing I understood while thinking, ‘What should a commissioner do?’ was that the keyword supplied by the director was vital, and it was ‘NEXT’ that year. Later, I realised that Deyan Sudjic wrote a lot of books, but more about applied art than architecture. I contacted the Biennale headquarters to meet him, but he wasn’t in Venice, and he wasn’t planning to come. I asked other commissioners if they had met him, but they said they didn’t remember meeting him. I concluded that it wasn’t necessary, it wasn’t possible, and it wasn’t that important to meet the director. That year’s theme was ‘NEXT’ but he delegated it to the commissioners, because he didn’t explain the concept. I concluded that I would have to figure it out myself.
Kim Jeoungeun: And then later on, when the exhibition started, what did you think of the theme exhibition curated by Deyan Sudjic himself? The exhibition categorised 140 projects by 10 functions.
Kimm Jong Soung: The exhibition was held in two places, one was Corderie which was a rope factory, and I can’t remember the other one. Quite a lot of works were on display in both exhibitions, and it was hard to read the theme. It was visually chaotic, and I couldn’t grasp them fully, only partially. I mainly visited national pavilions.
‘This year’s 8th Architecture Exhibition can be seen as a reaction to that of two years ago, as the Venice Biennale’s board of directors was drastically changed and Deyan Sudjic who ‘prefers exhibitions of real and physical architecture to fantastic and virtual ones’ was appointed as the director, which itself represents the new colour of the Biennale’s board of directors. Throughout the 1980s, Italian directors selected works of postmodernism, while Hans Hollein, the director of the 6th Architecture Exhibition in 1996, focused on deconstructivist architecture under the theme of ‘The Architect as Seismograph’. His vast architectural design projects are categorised into Housing, Education, Towers, Church and State, Museums, Performance, Communication, Shopping, and Masterplans, and they are presented in two-dimensional drawings, models, and full-scale detailed material mock-ups in a converted 16th-century cannon factory (Artiglierie) and rope factory (Corderie) that still bear witness to Venice’s mighty navy. What shows Sudjic’s aspect as an editor is his commitment to include all prominent architects and design organisations. While we usually don’t argue quality of giant airport terminal project, he displays large-scale projects such as the plans for Singapore Changi Airport New Terminal submitted by SOM and Renzo Piano’s plans for the New York Times Building, and he doesn’t invite any postmodern artists, as if he is clearly aware that postmodernism is dead. On the other hand, the exhibition covers all the major figures of deconstructivism.’ _‘Exhibition Description’ for the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2002 written by Kimm Jong Soung, from the Kimm Jong Soung Archive of the MMCA Gwacheon
Kim Jeoungeun: In your interview with Architecture & Culture at the time, you said, ‘While it was hard to tell whether the exhibition of two years ago was a video installation or an architectural exhibition, I am now more comfortable with this exhibition.’▼3
Kimm Jong Soung: That’s true. In the late 1990s, architecture exhibitions mainly centred on video, not just in Venice, but in all countries. But, as I said earlier, here there were too many exhibits on display and many of them were over-ambitious. Visually it was too much.
Kim Jeoungeun: Going back to the Korean Pavilion, in 2002, the Korean architectural community had little experience with international architectural exhibitions, so I think there was a lot of concern about how Korean architecture should present itself on the international stage.
Kimm Jong Soung: That’s true. I visited the site and saw the scale of the Korean Pavilion. I continued thinking about how to make a creative display, but I had already concluded that the exhibition wouldn’t make an impression on the international architecture community. However, I selected the works with the aim of being highly regarded when the exhibition at the Korean Pavilion was subject to intense critical scrutiny.
Exterior view of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale in 2002 / Image courtesy of Arts Council Korea
Interpreting ‘NEXT’ as an Architectural Challenge for Post-Korean Reunification
Kim Jeoungeun: In the initial press release about the theme of the Korean Pavilion, you said that in response to the theme governing the Architecture Exhibition in 2002, ‘NEXT’, you would focus on architectural challenges such as ‘under the presumption that the Koreas will be reunified in the next decade or so’, ‘innovation in collective housing and housing design’, ‘public architecture and community facilities’, ‘cultural infrastructure’, and ‘preservation of the natural ecosystem of the demilitarised zone and necessary architectural measures’. I’m curious about how you came up with this approach in the first place.
Kimm Jong Soung: It was probably the first plan that I submitted to Korea Culture and Arts Foundation. That’s my way of speaking. I actually implemented the theme, except for the exhibition on the DMZ project because it’s inaccessible. I had an optimistic vision in late 2001 that the two Koreas would reunite within a decade or so.
Kim Jeoungeun: It was Kim Dae-Jung’s presidency (Feb. 25, 1998 – Feb. 24, 2003) and I wonder whether the changing social atmosphere, such as the South-North Joint Declaration of the 15th of June, 2000, affected the architectural community. Did you consider the hope that the two Koreas would unify in the future and use this idea of togetherness when the Korean Pavilion was constructed?
Kimm Jong Soung: That was the social atmosphere at the time. Daewoo had visited North Korea with me many times to invest. We were guided to places like the Naegumgangsan Mountains, which is not normally open to foreign tourists, so I thought reunification was close. Kim Jeoungeun: When did you visit North Korea? Kimm Jong Soung: I first visited around 1989, and the last time was in 1992.
Kim Jeoungeun: Did the architectural world at the time share a thought for what we should do if unification were to occur?
Kimm Jong Soung: I had an opportunity that other architects didn’t have. I experienced a lot of things. I saw a constructionhalted hotel financed by French capital on Yanggakdo Island in the Daedonggang River; I visited Myohyangsan Mountain; and I saw a lot of small modern buildings built by North Korea. So, I had the idea that reunification was not just a wish, but quite a realistic prospect. I established the exhibition plan by intertwining, in various ways, the theme of ‘Next’ a projection of the coming decade.
Exterior view of the Korean Pavilion at the 8th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale in 2002 / Image courtesy of Arts Council Korea
Selection Process of the Participants
Kim Jeoungeun: During the selection process for the participants, you sent out a questionnaire to confirm participation in the biennale to 38 architects on the 18th of December, 2001. Was the theme already set at this point? Or was it determined during the selection process?
Kimm Jong Soung: We had a vague premise of reunification within the next ten years, but we didn’t have a clear theme when we asked about intentions to participate. We sent out a questionnaire to 38 architects, asking them to select works worthy of an architectural exhibition.
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1 The Commissioner of the Korean Pavilion at the time was selected by steering committee of the 8th International Architecture Exhibition. The steering committee members were Kang Sukwon (chairman and principal, Seoul Group KA), Kim Hankeun (principal, Han & Kim Architecture and fomer president, Korea Institute of Atchitects), Kim Insuk (president, Korean Institute of Female Architects and principal, Hannae Engineering), Chung Guyon (principal, GUYON Architects Associates), Kim Jaho (principal, Gansam Architects), Seung H-Sang (principal, IROJE architects & planners), Lee Jinbae (secretary general, Arts Council Korea), Kim Jangsil (chief of Arts Bureau, Ministry of Culture and Tourism) and Hwang Ilin (president, Korea Institute of Atchitects)
2 Mokchon Architecture Archive, Choi Wonjoon, Jeon Bonghee, Woo Don-Son, and Nam Sungtaeg, Oral history of Architect, Kimm Jong Soung, MATI BOOKS, 2018.
3 ‘Interview: 2002 Venice Biennale Korean Pavilion and Commissioner Kimm Jong Soung’, Architecture & Culture (Oct. 2002), p. 138.
