The next of the KCC’s Arttalks coincides with the London Festival of Architecture, which runs from 1–30 June:
ARTTALK: Architecture and the Evolving “COMMONS” – London and Seoul
In collaboration with the London Festival of Architecture and Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017
Thursday 2 June 2016
KCCUK, 16.00–20.00
Please RSVP to: [email protected] / +44(0)20 7004 2600
The Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) is proud to present Architecture and the Evolving “Commons” – London and Seoul, a seminar in partnership with the London Festival of Architecture, the forthcoming inaugural Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017 (Artistic Directors — Hyungmin Pai and Alejandro Zaera Polo), SH Corporation, and the British Council.
The seminar takes place on Thursday 2 June from 4.00pm to 8.00pm at the KCCUK and is intended as a platform for exchange between some of the most influential practitioners from Seoul and London. Divided into two sessions, each session focuses on one city and its community. This seminar is accompanied by an exhibition entitled Existing City/New Resource at the KCCUK, which demonstrates the question of ‘recycling the city’ and the current and future initiatives being undertaken by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
The first session of the seminar will present an overview of the hybrid spaces of modern day Seoul that challenge the conventional notion of separated work, dwelling, recreation, and transportation spaces. It will also explore the way technologically driven urban interventions are being used to reorganise and reinvent communities in Korea. The second session will seek to demonstrate architecture’s relevance to London and its diverse communities, and discuss how community is at the heart of every successful development in the capital. In doing so, the programme explores the many ways that contemporary architectural projects are seeking to re-imagine the future.
Questions asked by the seminars will include: How do architectural and urban interventions reorganise and reinvent communities? How do these interventions become part of an evolving commons of making, sensing, recycling and sharing?
How does the production of the hybrid spaces challenge the conventional twentieth–century regime that separates work, dwelling, recreation, and transportation? What kind of role does technology play in these spatial practices? How does the rise of the new commons bring about a different understanding of production and community? How does this call for a new kind of architectural and urban practice?
By exploring the role of architecture and urbanism in this technological and politico-economic process, some of the critical practices in present London and Seoul are highlighted as new modes of spatial production that are reorganising and collapsing work, habitation, and play.
As such, the seminar will delve into the role of architecture and urbanism in today’s community, and some of the critical practices present in London and Seoul. Through their talks, presentations, discussions, screening, and Q&A session, the speakers will explore and consider how architectural and urban practices can redefine our understanding of community.
Programme
16:00 Welcome (Hae-Won Shin) 16:05 Introduction (Robert Mull and Hyungmin Pai) Session 1 16:10 Hyungmin Pai (Co-director, Seoul Biennale 2017) 16:30 Lucy Musgrave (Director, Publica) 16:50 Soik Jung (Director, Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism Division) 17:10 John Hong (Director of International Studios, Seoul Lab 2017) 17:30 Roundtable Discussion (Chaired by Robert Mull) 17:50 Break Session 2 18:10 Robert Mull (Professor, Beevor Mull Architects LLP) 18:30 Torange Khonsari and Andreas Lang (Directors, Public Works) 18:50 Hae-Won Shin (Curator of Seoul Biennale 2017) 19:10 Indy Johar (Director, Architecture 00) 19:30 Roundtable Discussion (Chaired by Hyungmin Pai) 20:00 Reception Curated by Hae-Won Shin and Robert Mull The 2016 London Festival of Architecture
Architecture and the Evolving “Commons” – London and Seoul is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2016 which runs from 1–30 June. The 2016 London Festival of Architecture (LFA) celebrates London as a global hub of architecture. The theme of the London Festival of Architecture 2016 is “Community”, and the festival aims to connect with as many people as possible to demonstrate architecture’s relevance to London and its diverse communities. The festival programme features exhibitions and events organised by London’s leading architectural, cultural and academic institutions alongside architects, designers, curators and community groups from around the UK.
EXHIBITION AT KCCUK: EXISTING CITY/NEW RESOURCE
In conjunction with Architecture and the Evolving “Commons” – London and Seoul, the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) exhibits the current and future initiatives being undertaken by the Seoul Metropolitan Government which will focus on nine projects that exemplify the question of recycling the city. Through a re-conceptualised figure-ground technique, underutilised, infrastructural, or subgrade spaces are shown transformed into alternative public and semi-public realms. Beyond traditional ideas of public squares and boulevards, the exhibit—divided into two parts 1. Seoul Mappings 2.Photography and Film—will show how existing fabrics can be recycled into new forms of urban commons.
Seoul Mappings
“Existing City/New Resource,” John Hong, Director of International Studios, Seoul Lab 2017:
- Mapo Petro Tanks: RoA architects + Team Ten + Seogoo Heo
- Seoul Station 7017: MVRDV
- Sewoon Modern Vernacular: Es_cape architects
- Sejong Underground: Terminal 7 architect
- Community Service Centers: Seoul Architects
- Guui Basin Happy Housing
- Modular Housing Suseo, DMP partners
- Malli Cooperative Public Housing: EMA architects & associates
- Urban Dwelling Container Housing: UIA architect
Photography and Film
- “SH (Study on Habitability)”, Kyungsub Shin, artist
- “Seoul,” Tapio Snellman, filmmaker, artist, and architect
Curated by John Hong
Exhibition runs from 2–10 June 2016 (Except Saturday 4 June)
SPEAKER S AND MODERATORS
(in alphabetical order)
John Hong: Director of International Studios, Seoul Lab 2017; Professor, Seoul National University
Indy Johar: Director, Architecture 00
Soik Jung: Director, Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism Division
Torange Khonsari and Andreas Lang: Directors, Public Works
Robert Mull: Professor, Beevor Mull Architects LLP
Lucy Musgrave: Director, Publica
Hyungmin Pai: Co-director, Seoul Biennale 2017; Professor, University of Seoul
Hae-Won Shin: Curator, Seoul Biennale 2017; Principal, lokaldesign
John Hong is an architect and professor at Seoul National University and director of International Studios, Seoul Lab. His work bridges the scales of architecture and urbanism and converges the mediums of drawings, material, theory, and computation. Prior to establishing his current design lab, Project: Architecture he was co-founder of the firm SsD. His work has been exhibited at international venues including the 2014 Venice Biennale as well as published in major media such as Architectural Record, The New Yorker, and Space Magazine. His built projects were awarded fifteen American Institute of Architecture (AIA) awards, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, and the Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League NY. His most notable writings include the books, Convergent Flux: Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Korea, (2012) and Fragments of a New Housing Language: Contemporary Urban Housing in Korea (2016). He was Associate Professor in Practice at the Harvard GSD (2007-14) and he received his Master’s in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Indy Johar is an ARB and RIBA registered architect, Co-Founder & Executive Director 00, Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and a Senior Innovation Associate with the Young Foundation. Project00.cc is the Civic Venture Studio behind Opendesk.cc; WikiHouse.cc; Impact Hub Birmingham; Impact Hub Brixton; Impact Hub Islington; Impact hub Westminster; architecture00. net. Johar, on behalf of 00, has co-founded multiple social ventures from Impact Hub Westminster to Impact Hub Birmingham and the HubLaunchpad Accelerator, along with working with large global multinationals & institutions to support their transition to a positive Systems Economy. He has also co-led research projects such as The Compendium for the Civic Economy, whilst supporting several 00 explorations/experiments including the wikihouse.cc, opendesk.cc. Johar is an Advisor to the Earth Security Initiative and a director of WikiHouse Foundation.
Soik Jung is an urbanist and currently the director of Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism Division at Seoul Design Foundation. She studied Architecture in Yonsei University and received her Ph. D in Urbanism at Politecnico di Milano and Gwangju. After a wide range of design, architectural, urban design practices in Seoul, New York, Milan and Gwnagju, she has focused on urban communication projects – she was curator for the Governance Project for Great Hanoi, the Anyang Public Art Project 2010, the 4th Gwangju Design Biennale and the Culture Station Seoul 284; she also organised different urban pedagogy programmes as well as citizen programmes working with local institutions such as Haja Center, Daelim Museum.
Torange Khonsari obtained her professional Diploma at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London – July 1998. In 2004 she co founded the art and architecture practice Public Works, an interdisciplinary practice working in the threshold of participatory and performative art, architecture and related fields of anthropology, always engaged with notions of civic in the city. Their projects are socially and politically motivated and directly impacts public space, working with local organisations, communities, government bodies and stakeholders. As a practice it is a vehicle and an umbrella that both hosts and tests the academic research undertaken within university teaching. Khonsari currently teaches architecture at London Metropolitan University (The Cass) and UMEA school of architecture in Sweden. The direct two-way communication between academia and practice has enabled and enriched an exploratory environment within which Public Works is now operating.
Andreas Lang is the co-founder of Public Works, a nonprofit critical design practice that occupies the terrain between art, architecture and research. Working with an extended network of interdisciplinary collaborators, public works aims to re-work spatial, social and economic opportunities towards citizen-driven development and improved civic life. The practice, set up in 2004, uses a range of approaches, including public events, campaigns, the development of urban strategies and participatory art and architecture projects across all scales. Lang is currently a lecturer in Architecture at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design and at the Umeå School of Architecture (Sweden). Lang has contributed to many international conferences, lectures and workshops. Currently he is a PHD candidate at the University of Sheffield where his practice based research explores issues of ‘Temporary Use’ and its potential agency to create new civic spaces and practices.
Robert Mull is a co-founder of NATO (Narrative Architecture Today). NATO made projects, staged exhibitions and actions and produced a magazine exploring the relationship between art, architecture and the DIY movement of the 1980s. Mull has taught in many contexts, holding visiting professorships at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna and the Technical Universities in Vienna and Innsbruck and tutoring in the USA, Seoul, Taiwan, Moscow, Berlin and Lima. In recent years Mull has been the chair of SCHOSA – the body that represents the Heads of Schools of Architecture. Mull became conjoint Dean of the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Media and Design and the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Design in 2011 and brought them together to form a new Faculty – The Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, known simply as The Cass from 2012 to 2015 where he was Dean and Director of Architecture and runs the Free Unit. Currently Mull is Visiting Professor at the University of Umea and consultant to the urban design practice Publica. Mull was curator of the “Turncoats” series and has recently been involved in the refugee crises in Calais, Lesvos and Izmir and is curator of “Papers” a one day festival celebrating the Art, Architecture and Culture of the refugee crises at the Barbican Centre on the 12th of June 2016.
Lucy Musgrave is the founding Director of Publica and a leading practitioner in the fields of urbanism and the public realm. She has played a key advisory role in policy recommendations, strategic planning and urban design frameworks, and in the advocacy of design quality. Musgrave is a current member of the Cultural Hub Advisory Board for the City of London, the City Property Association Board, the HS2 Design Panel, the New London Sounding Board and the West End Partnership Place Task Group. Musgrave was previously Director of the Architecture Foundation and was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2001.
Hyungmin Pai studied architecture and urban design at Seoul National University and received his Ph.D from the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture program at MIT. Twice a Fulbright Scholar, he is presently professor at the University of Seoul. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and Washington University (St Louis) and was visiting scholar at MIT and London Metropolitan University. He is author of The Portfolio and the Diagram (MIT Press, 2002), required reading in core courses at Harvard University, Columbia University and the AA School, Sensuous Plan: The Architecture of Seung H-Sang (Dongnyok, 2007), and The Key Concepts of Korean Architecture (Dongnyok, 2012). For the Venice Biennale, he was curator for the Korean Pavilion in 2008 and 2014 (awarded the Golden Lion for best national participation), and a participant in the Common Pavilions project (2012). He was Visiting Director of the Asia Culture Complex (2014-15), Head Curator for the Gwangju Design Biennale (2010-11), and guest curator at the Aedes Gallery (Berlin), the Tophane Amire Gallery (Istanbul), The Cass Gallery (London), and Plateau, Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul). He is presently on the Presidential Committee for the Hub City of Asian Culture, the Mayor’s Committee for the Future of Seoul, and Chair of the Mokchon Architecture Archive.
Hae-Won Shin is the founder of lokaldesign. She has realised a wide range of projects differing in scale, ranging from infrastructure across the Han River, large to small public projects, interior and to cardboard chair design. Shin is currently a Projects Director at Publica where she leads a number of projects, which include the detailed design of the public realm, infrastructure and masterplanning context in an expansive area of West London and a vision for the Oxford Street District. Shin has been an Assistant Professor at Chinese University of Arts and Korea National University of Arts and has exhibited at the CASS 2015; Venice Architecture Biennale 2006; Aedes Gallery Berlin; the MAK Vienna; RMIT in Melbourne and in 2013 was awarded the Young Architect Award in Korea.
