“I’m delighted to be able to introduce my book to fellow plant parents across the anglophone world. In 2025, we need the wisdom of each and every individual in our communities, now more than ever. During this time, I hope that the stories of plants – their concentrated wisdom unfolding according to the laws of … [Read More]
Booklist: Architecture Landscape and Horticulture
City in a Future Tense: The Making of a Smart City in South Korea [forthcoming]
Songdo, South Korea, is one of the earliest and most ambitious smart city projects. Mythical narratives have painted it as a promised land of the future where the problems and struggles of the present have been efficiently transcended—or concealed—by technology. In City in a Future Tense, Chamee Yang interrogates these myths and traces Songdo’s story to show how it … [Read More]
Earth Works: Houses by Byoung Cho
Earth Works: Houses by Byoung Cho offers a unique glimpse into the residential buildings of one of Korea’s most influential architects. This visually stunning monograph combines photography, plans, drawings, paintings and models to provide an exclusive overview of this rarely published aspect of Byoung’s work. Focused entirely around fifteen private and rarely seen residences, the … [Read More]
My Life as An Architect in Seoul
The second book in the ‘My Life as an Architect’ series, looking at the Seoul buildings that have shaped the practice and outlook of the celebrated Korean architect Byoung Cho. Since founding his practice BCHO Architects Associates in Seoul in 1994, Byoung Cho has built a reputation as the key architect driving the expansion of … [Read More]
Forces of Nature: New Perspectives on Korean Environments
Bringing together a multidisciplinary conversation about the entanglement of nature and society in the Korean peninsula, Forces of Nature aims to define and develop the field of the Korean environmental humanities. At its core, the volume works to foreground non-human agents that have long been marginalized in Korean studies, placing flora, fauna, mineral deposits, and climatic conditions that … [Read More]
City of Sediments: A History of Seoul in the Age of Colonialism
Once the capital of the five-hundred-year Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897) and the Taehan Empire (1897–1910), the city of Seoul posed unique challenges to urban reform and modernization under Japanese colonial rule in the early twentieth century, constrained by the labyrinthian built environment of the old Korean capital. Colonial authorities attempted to employ a strategy of “erasure”—monumental … [Read More]
A Global History of Ginseng: Imperialism, Modernity and Orientalism
Sul’s history of the international ginseng trade reveals the cultural aspects of international capitalism and the impact of this single commodity on relations between East and West. Ginseng emerged as a major international commodity in the seventeenth century, when the East India Company began trading it westward. Europeans were drawn to the plant’s efficacy as … [Read More]
The Borders of Chinese Architecture
An internationally acclaimed expert explains why Chinese-style architecture has remained so consistent for two thousand years, no matter where it is built. For the last two millennia, an overwhelming number of Chinese buildings have been elevated on platforms, supported by pillars, and covered by ceramic-tile roofs. Less obvious features, like the brackets connecting the pillars … [Read More]
Korean Temples: The Weird and Wonderful
There are over 12,000 temples that dot the Korean peninsula. Having traveled extensively throughout South Korea, Dale Quarrington selects thirty of the most unique Korean Buddhist temples. Whether it’s the artwork, architecture, or geography that makes the temple either weird or wonderful, Dale Quarrington helps to shed some light on these amazingly eccentric locations. Source: … [Read More]
Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea
Japanese colonial rule in Korea (1905-1945) ushered in natural resource management programs that profoundly altered access to and ownership of the peninsula’s extensive mountains and forests. Under the banner of “forest love,” the colonial government set out to restructure the rhythms and routines of agrarian life, targeting everything from home heating to food preparation. Timber … [Read More]
‘Difficult Heritage’ in Nation Building: South Korea and Post-Conflict Japanese Colonial Occupation Architecture
From the publisher’s website: This book explores South Korean responses to the architecture of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea and the ways that architecture illustrates the relationship between difficult heritage and the formation of national identity. Detailing the specific case of Seoul, Hyun Kyung Lee investigates how buildings are selectively destroyed, preserved, or reconstructed … [Read More]
Korean Gardens: Tradition, Symbolism and Resilience
From the publisher’s website: Korean Gardens: Tradition, Symbolism and Resilience – The Western Gardeners’ Guide to the Essence of Korean Traditional Gardens Korean gardens strive to be in harmony with nature and to encourage the quiet contemplation of the natural world. They are intentionally humble in their conception and very different from Japanese and Chinese … [Read More]
Seoul: Memory, Reinvention, and the Korean Wave
From the publisher’s website: Seoul is a colossus both in its physical presence and the demand it places on any intellectual effort to understand it. How did it come to be? How can a city this immense work? Underlying its spectacle and incongruities is a city that might be described as ill at ease with … [Read More]
Pine Trees In Korea: Aesthetics and Symbolism
From the publisher’s website: The Pine Tree as an Iconic Symbol of Korea’s Natural Landscape Lush pine forests can be found throughout the Korean peninsula as the pine tree has successfully adapted to its natural environment over thousands of years. The evergreen pine forests have a different ambience and beauty from one region to another, … [Read More]
P’ungsu: A Study of Geomancy in Korea
From the publisher’s website: The first scholarly book to address Korean geomancy through an interdisciplinary lens. This book is a milestone in the history of academic research on the development and role of geomancy (fengshui in Chinese and p’ungsu in Korean) in Korean culture and society. As the first interdisciplinary work of its kind, it … [Read More]
Globalizing Seoul: The City’s Cultural and Urban Change
In the decades following the 1997 Asian economic crisis, South Korea sought segyehwa (globalization). Evidence of this is no more evident than in the country’s capital, Seoul, where urban development has been central to making the city a global hub and not just the centre of the national economy. However, recent development projects differ from those of … [Read More]