WEIGHING UP THE FUTURE OF THE HILTON HOTEL
On 8th April, a symposium was held under the theme of ‘The Future of the Namsan Hilton Hotel and the Yangdong Improvement District’ at the Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture. The event, co-hosted by nine institutions including SPACE, the Society of Korean Modern Architecture & Urbanism, the Korea Institute of Registered Architects, the Korea Architects Institute, OPENHOUSE Seoul, WIDE AR, Junglim Foundation, the Korean Institute of Architects, and the Korea Association for Architectural History, attracted many people to both the venue and the live broadcast on YouTube, confirming a heightened public interest in the preservation and use of modern and contemporary urban buildings such as the Hilton Hotel. Here, SPACE publishes not only the findings of the symposium, but also the position taken by IGIS Asset Management who purchased the Hilton Hotel, in order to deliver the full picture to our readers.
Symposium: The Future of the Namsan Hilton Hotel and the Yangdong Improvement District
Last year, when the sale of the Namsan Hilton Hotel designed by Kimm Jong-soung (honorary president, SAC International) to IGIS Asset Management, and the subsequent demolition and replacement project through new buildings was announced, discussions about the preservation and use of the Hilton Hotel were ignited throughout the architecture world. A symposium was proposed, ‘The Future of the Namsan Hilton Hotel and the Yangdong Improvement District’ to discuss the direction and possibility of progressive change in the area from the Hilton Hotel to the Seoul Station to the Namsan Mountain. Hwang Doojin (principal, Doojin Hwang Architects), chair of the symposium, opened the proceedings, noting ‘Instead of taking the dichotomous approach to development or conservation, let's go where no man has gone before, and explore new possibilities of which no one has yet conceived’.
Pai Hyungmin (professor, University of Seoul) began his presentation ‘Architecture of the Hilton Hotel: A Milestone in Korea of the Late 20th Century’ with the statement that a hotel is a symbol typical of modernity. From the perspective of hotel
