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Like many a Westerner with an interest in Korea (and without any stake in the relevant historical conflicts), I\u2019ve also cultivated a parallel interest in Japan, and I find few things Japanese as interesting as I find Japanese architecture. Who, I began to wonder as I learned more about the architecture of Japan and the culture of Korea, stands as the Korean equal of a Kenzo Tange, a Kisho Kurokawa, or a Tadao Ando, with their deep concerns not just for the aesthetics but the shape of society to come? I didn\u2019t have an answer until, on a walk through central Seoul<\/a> with scholar of the both the Korean language and built environment Robert Fouser<\/a>(whom I more recently interviewed here on the Korea Blog), I first visited Seun Sangga, South Korea\u2019s first large-scale residential-commercial complex.<\/span><\/p>\n
Built in 1966 during the mayoral term of Kim Hyon-ok, nicknamed \u201cthe Bulldozer,\u201d the kilometer-long linear development, which stretches across blocks and blocks of downtown Seoul, didn\u2019t take long to draw disdain as a \u201cconcrete monstrosity\u201d (or the Korean-language equivalent thereof). \u201cThe phrase reverberates,\u201d says defender of British brutalism Jonathan Meades in his documentary Concrete Poetry<\/em><\/a> of that now-standard architectural slur. \u201cAny modest, self-effacing newspaper columnist can be sure that he will please readers with the same ready-made formula. For, as we all know, concrete monstrosities are culpable of virtually everything: they promote every known social ill, and many which have yet to be revealed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though it does contain plenty of concrete, Seun Sangga is, of course, not British, nor is it exactly a work of brutalism. We could, perhaps, call it a work of pure developmentalism, erected as both a symbol of and a contribution to to the country\u2019s fast-growing postwar economy: in addition to the massive amount of retail space on the lower floors, this \u201ccity within a city\u201d had first-class apartments (at least by the standards of Korea in the 1960s) on the upper and even boasting such then-unheard-of amenities as a fitness center. It nevertheless fell so far short of its even more ambitions original design, which included glass atria and a transportation system to connect all the buildings together, that the complex\u2019s architect disavowed it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n