Korean traditional architecture is characterized by its harmony with nature. Ancient architects adopted the bracket system and is characterized by thatched roofs and heated floors called ondol. People of the upper classes built bigger houses with elegantly curved tiled roofs with lifting eaves. Traditional architecture can be seen in the palaces and temples, preserved old houses called hanok, and special sites like Hahoe Folk Village, Yangdong Village of Gyeongju and Korean Folk Village. Traditional architecture may also be seen at the nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites in South Korea.
Western architecture was first introduced to Korea at the end of the 19th century. Churches, offices for foreign legislation, schools and university buildings were built in new styles. With annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 the colonial regime intervened in Korea's architectural heritage and Japanese-style modern architecture was imposed. The anti-Japanese sentiment, and the Korean War, led to the destruction of most buildings constructed during that time.
Korean architecture entered a new phase of development during the post-Korean War reconstruction, incorporating modern architectural trends and styles. Stimulated by the economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, active redevelopment saw new horizons in architectural design. In the aftermath of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea has witnessed a wide variation of styles in its architectural landscape due, in large part, to the opening up of the market to foreign architects. Contemporary architectural efforts have been constantly trying to balance the traditional philosophy of "harmony with nature" and the fast-paced urbanization that the country has been going through in recent years.
American models heavily influenced new Korean buildings of any importance, with domestic architecture both civil and rural keeping to traditional buildings, building techniques, and using local materials, and local vernacular styles. The pragmatic need to rebuild a country devastated by genocide, then a civil war, led to ad hoc buildings with no particular styles, extended repeatedly, and a factory system of simple cheap expendable buildings. As few Korean cities had a grid-system, and were often given limits by mountains, few if any urban landscapes had a sense of distinction; by the mid-1950s, rural areas were underfunded, urban areas overfilled, and urban sprawl began with little money to build distinctive important buildings.
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| Namdaemun gate at night in Seoul |
Buildings were built as quickly as money and demand would allow in a workman-like anonymous way, but without individual identities. Architects were almost to a man trained in the United States, and brought American design, perspective, and methods without much recourse to the local community look and feel. As the need for housing for workers increased, traditional hanoak villages were razed, hundreds of simple cheap apartments were put up very fast, and bedroom communities on the periphery of the urban centres grew, built and financed as company housing. Little effort was made to have a sense of an architectural aesthetic.
This urgency for simple fast housing left most Korean downtowns as faceless as Hong Kong: concrete towers for work or living and local neighborhoods rebuilt with cheap materials. Little or no attempt was made for planning, if planning had been possible. In the countryside, traditional building continued.
Well into the 1980s, Korea had architecture, but its buildings had little aesthetic, a limited sense of design, and did not integrate into the neighbourhoods or culture. Awareness that functionality had reached its limits came quickly as Korea moved into the world through sports culture. Sports architecture transited to a Korean style.
Sports Architecture
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| Seoul tower at night in Seoul |
South Korea won the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic games, which spurred waves of new building activity. To market the country globally, international architects were encouraged to submit designs, introducing alternative concepts for modern architecture that began to put style and form ahead of spartan practicality. Historically, sports architecture has occupied the most money and the greatest expression of form identity within Korea. Hundreds of billions of won have been spent on defining Korea as a sports mecca with the architecture leading the way.
As in the North, most of the largest projects in the South were government sponsored works: but instead worked in confined, rather than open spaces, and worked with huge amounts of enclosed space, primarily in the state subsidized hugely expensive sports architecture. Korea since the 1980s had its most famous architectural works driven by sports: the Asian Games (1986), the Olympics (1988), and the 2002 World Cup stadia, as well as great support being given by the chaebols such as the Samsung Group which itself owned the sports teams for marketing purposes.
Important architects at this time and their works often led by the atelier-style architectural co-operative Space Group of Korea were:
Taejon World Cup stadium.
Park Kil-ryong
Jungup Kim or Kim Chung-up - Trained in France and designed the Olympic Memorial Gate/World Peace Gate, 1988.
Jongseong Kim - Weight Lifting Gymnasium, Olympic Park, 1986.
Kim Su-keun who trained in Tokyo - Olympic Stadium. 1984. Total area is 133,649metres³, 100,000seats, 245×180m diameter, 830 m in perimeter.
Gyusung Woo - Olympic Village, 1984.
It wasn't until the late 1980s and early 1990s that an entirely new generation of Korean architects had the freedom and the financing to build Korean architecture in a distinct Korean manner. This was a result of architects studying and training in Europe, Canada, and even in South America, and seeing the need for more of a sense of unique style, and more sophisticated materials.
There was a new determination that nationalistic architectural elements had to be revived and refined. Buildings had to mean something within their cultural context.
Technology Infrastructure
Recently, Naro Space Center becoming the first spaceport of the Republic of Korea. Scheduled to be completed by the end of 2007 or early 2008 at Goheung County, South Jeolla. Built on 4.95 million square meters of reclaimed land, Korea Space Center is expected to send a Korea Space Launch Vehicle into space in 2008.
The spaceport will be operated by the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute and will have contain features necessary for spaceflight operation having a launch tower, a control tower, rocket assembly and test facilities and space simulators.
Future Architecture
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| Incheon Twin Towers being built at Incheon (compared to World Trade Center, New York). |
Many supertall buildings are planned to be built in populated regions in South Korea namely Seoul and Busan. Two of these future planned architectures are Incheon Twin Towers and Busan Lotte Tower.
Songdo Incheon Twin Towers A pair of super tower tower Incheon Twin Towers are planned to be built in 2013. The $3 billion 613 m (2,011 ft) worth twin towers will be the main architecture of a 13,000 acre (53 km²) urban development referred as New Songdo City, located in Incheon, South Korea. The towers is planned to be connected by three sky bridges and house a hotel, a convention center, offices and a shopping mall.
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