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The <Rebirth of Place: Expansion & Conflict of the Korean Modern Architecture> exhibition is taking place in Seoul branch of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) since 23rd of last month and it is an exhibition that examines the past and present of Korean Modern Architecture using ‘Time and Event’ as its framework.
This exhibition is co-hosted by MMCA and DOCOMOMO Korea and is one of the first Exhibitions held in Asia with the theme ‘Expansion & Conflict’ of ‘2014 Seoul DOCOMO MO International Conference’.
It employed fragments of modern architecture to compose the framework of time and event, and the moments of expansion and conflict inside the framework are presented with approximately 20 buildings and 2,000 archived data’s.
The exhibition contains five topics, ‘Forgotten Memories’, ‘Representation of Landscape’, ‘Recalling of Subject’, ‘Transfer of Power’ and ‘Future to be Continued’, and each parts vividly represents Korea’s Modern Architecture from late 1800 to mid-1900 by revealing non-public information such as model, blueprint, magazine and image.
‘Forgotten Memories’ looks back at buildings that disappeared or changed due to various reasons. These historic changes are shown through blueprint of Japanese governor-general building and a variety of news articles on Kukdo and Scara Theater.
‘Representation of Landscape’ shed new light on buildings that lived and survived through the conflict between traditional architecture of Korea and western style buildings that are introduced during Japanese Colonial Era. The list of representative examples would be the Old Seoul Station that has been changed to an exhibition space, headquarter of Dong-A daily news that is now an art museum and old Seoul City Hall, which became a library.
‘Recalling of Subject’ looks at the names of architects who vanished along with the extinction of modern architecture and their revived works. It presents the works of existing arch itects, who discovered and recalled the forgotten subjects, such as SPACE Group building of Swooguen Kim that has been refurbished to Arario Museum in Space and Sun yoodo Park that used to be a water treatment plant and used it to prove that the value to modern cultural heritage is granted by the architect.
‘Transfer of Power’ presents the places with layers of time such as outpatient clinic of the Medical School of Gyeongseong Imperial University and The Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, which were first made as assistance organizations for the ruling power and are now opened to the public.
In ‘Future to be Continued’, people can take a look at buildings like Se-un market of Swooguen Kim and Sam-il building of Chung up Kim, which are remembered and served as city’s landmarks for a long time.
The architectural characteristics of Korea from the time between Japanese Colonial Era and industrial development period can be explored in this exhibition. Modern Korean architecture is expressed in Japanese architectural style or appeared in a form of western style buildings and yet it reveals its Korean identity.
This exhibition shows the value of preserving and utilizing modern architecture of Korea.
Written by jill Park, Translator Boo Jang
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Exhibition information
Period: 2014. 9. 23 – 12. 14
Venue: MMCA Gallery 8
Host: MMCA, DOCOMOMO Korea.
Planning of cooperation: Chun, Eun(SAN, Architect), MMCA[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
