A Platform as a Springboard

The literary critic Im Hwa recently claimed that modern literature is the product of transplantation. In the last century, one line of enquiry in the study of Korean literature attempted to overcome this thesis by establishing a sense of literature as something spontaneous and attentive to its own practices rather than as transference or transplant. I am required to address a range of discussions on transplantation theory and intrinsic development theory, and the differences between literature and architecture in detail, before I can begin to talk about a thesis of modern Korean architecture. Here, however I will skip the intermediate position and transform and radicalize that thesis on the pretext of insufficient space. Modern architecture is the product of transplantation. Modern architecture is transplanted not only to Korea, but also to Japan, United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and everywhere. Modern architecture did not emerge from a single origin and spread to other places. It developed in its own way in each region, prompting conflicts with existing styles. Modern architecture was consciously created and cultivated. Their starting points

‒ the role of key agents and the particular character of development ‒ may differ considerably, but I can state with confidence that there is no single case that spontaneously emerges within a community, regardless of the definition of such a unit as region, city, or country, to naturally replace the dominant architectural style. Modern architecture is the result of deliberate design activities and ideologically informed creation. It was ideology that preceded real world application, and the so-called precedents or reference points that seemingly propelled modernism. The bigger this gap was thought to be, the greater the anxiety about and desire for a modern architecture.

Modern architecture needed a platform as a springboard in order to fill this perceived gap between the present and the future, and win the culture war; it was a bundle of paper printed with typed paragraphs that provided the answer. Magazines were arguably the most important platform for the dissemination of cultural knowledge in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, spreading and solidifying the reception and growing impression of a new architecture. Historic architectural magazines, many of which are still published today, such as Architectural Record (Founded in 1891) in the US, Architectural Review (1896) in the UK, Casabella (1928) and Domus (1928) in Italy, and L̓Architecture d̓Aujourd̓hui (1930) in France, have all provided channels through which to modern architecture permeates numerous markets and societies, as well as collective spaces for architects and critics. Many avant-garde movements between the two world wars needed magazines to announce their pioneering theoretical convictions and to circulate their manifesto statements or critical principles as activists or anarchists in the cultural sphere. It is difficult to imagine the existence and continued relevance of movements such as Bauhaus, G, and De Stijl without magazines.

This is no different in Korea. Modern architecture cannot exist without media engagement and broader public discourse. (1922) was published during the Japanese colonial period, but there were sharp restrictions placed on the journal of the Joseon Architecture Association, which was run by a group of Japanese architects in Korea. After Korea was liberated, (July 1959) was founded by the Korea Housing Administration, (April 1961) by the Korean Institute of Architects, and (July 1966) by the Korea Institute of Registered Architects. It was only natural that the Korea Housing Administration, the largest architectural outfit in Korea at the time, would also try to accrue and disseminate knowledge through the medium of the magazine. However, to control the demand for and discourse around ‘architecture’, which was at that time exploding, was beyond the capacity and aims of the Korea Housing Administration’s magazine, fixated as they were on building ‘better houses, cheaper and greater in number’. This was stated by Kim Yun-ki, the chairman of the board, in their first issue, in consideration of aspects such as its specific set of themes and its niche readership. The limitations of the two magazines were not that different. In the preface for the magazine , which was discontinued after the publication of only its second issue in 1960, Kim Jae-cheol, the chairman of, a pure architectural magazine long-awaited by those in our architectural world [...] It is because of this significant position that it has presents an “epochal moment” to the history of Korean architecture and to the wider cultural movement’. However, this passionate desire to declare a new ‘epoch’, which means the beginning of a new age, for Korean architectural theory and practice through this new ‘pure and comprehensive architectural magazine’ was one that had to be put on hold until emerged on the scene in November 1966. The difference in decades between the publication of American and European magazines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and that of in mid-1960s Korea corresponds almost exactly with the time lag between the introduction of modern architecture to the West and its introduction and reception in Korea.