SPACE June 2026 (No. 703)
Interview Jung Woongsik Principal, On architects x Kim Jeoungeun Editor-in-Chief, SPACE, Park Jiyoun Editor, SPACE
Formative Environments and Interests
SPACE: You were born in Ulsan, completed your education and professional training there, and eventually established your own practice. Seoul offers a far richer infrastructure in terms of jobs and cultural opportunities, so, after finishing your studies, was the decision to remain in Ulsan a conscious one on your part, or did it happen more naturally through circumstance?
Jung Woongsik (Jung): It was closer to a conscious choice. I understood that it would have been easier to train within Seoul’s well-established infrastructure and then start an office there, but I kept wondering whether there might be another path. While traveling through Europe, I became curious why, unlike in our society, the architectural infrastructure of other countries was sustained in diverse ways across different regions. Later, I watched students from regional areas work at well-known offices in Seoul before returning to their hometowns to open their own practices, yet many seemed unable to fully develop their own architectural identity. I do not think this was a matter of ability. Rather, they were confronting practical realities in regional cities – different from those in Seoul – that made it difficult to pursue the architecture they truly wanted to make. I began to think there might be some difference between Seoul and the regions that we had not yet recognised, and I wanted to experience and confirm that difference for myself.
SPACE: You grew up in an environment familiar to this one, with nature and hanok characterising your childhood. How does that background connect to your architecture today?
Jung: To be honest, in the past I did not consciously try to find or examine any direct relationship between nature, the hanok, and my work. However, because many people saw me practicing architecture without an obvious stylistic or theoretical background, they often asked about my childhood or architects I admired – things that might form the foundation of my architecture – and in doing so, they began drawing connections for me.
Fundamentally, I think all people are drawn to nature. In my childhood, nature seems to have given me a sense of imaginative freedom. Spending time looking at clouds and imagining different forms in them, or observing the patterns of tree bark, helped shape my own way of interpreting sites and perceiving objects when it came to design. I have also always had an affection for old things,...
