AGAIN, QUERYING THE CURRENT SITUATION IN URBAN DESIGN: ON KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN URBAN DESIGN

Many voices have begun to emphasise the necessity of integrated planning in urbanism and architecture. It demonstrates the difficulties in communication between designers of cities and architecture. Who is shaping our cities and how? SPACE No.

204 (June 1984) captured the beginnings of departments of urban design in Korea.

And now, four scholars who are thinking about urban design gather here to look back over the 1980s and asks these questions anew of our present moment.

The Beginning of Urban Design: Looking Back to the 1980s

Working in the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (auri) for the past three years, I have experienced what it is to research architecture and urban policy in Korea. While I was preparing for an urban design class after I returned to school in the fall semester of 2021, I seriously pondered which texts to read with my students. What texts are pertinent when addressing this area? Which urban design manual is appropriate for such a class? After remaining in Sejong for three years, I performed major house repairs last summer and threw most of my books out that had long stood in my library. In the process, most of my old issues of were discarded, but in the act of reviewing for the magazine I felt sorry for letting them go. I recalled somewhat unexpectedly that it was that had introduced me in the late 1980s to urban design. For example, the special feature, ‘Current Situation of Urban Design’ that featured in No. 204 (June 1984) still bears the traces of discoloured highlighter pen that I, a graduate student at the time, used to underline the article. After four decades, how can I explain the ‘Current Situation of Urban Design’ to myself, then or now? Finding answers to these questions, I decided that it would be difficult to reach original answers in conversation with ‘older’ scholars of my age, including myself, who were born in the 1960s and went to college in the 1980s, and benefitted from the so-called compressed growth era. As such, to my shame, I started to ask questions of ‘young’ scholars who were likely to hold a different point of view. Thankfully, Kang Bumjoon, Kim Saehoon, and Kim Youngchul, who participated in this discussion, opened the door to a different story about the current situation of urban design in Korea. I value for showing interest in the first round of conversation that should be developed further. We would like to continue the conversation, hoping that this initial discussion will gradually evolve and lead to the production of