A special feature of the traditional Korean Hanok building style is its difference from Western styles. The Hanoks preserved to this day are built according to practical housing needs, while featuring distinct regional differences and adaptations to their surrounding landscapes. They breathe the style and flair of their inhabitants‘ lives and traces of them can be … [Read More]
Booklist: Architecture Landscape and Horticulture (page 2)
Hanok: The Korean House
Appreciate the understated glamour and traditional comfort in this collection of the most excellent examples of timeless Korean architecture.Hanok: The Korean House provides new insights on the stylish traditional Korean homes that are experiencing a resurgence of popularity in Seoul today. While the exteriors of these houses are indistinguishable from traditional hanok built decades ago, the insides have … [Read More]
Environment, Politics, and Ideology in North Korea: Landscape as Political Project
From the publisher’s website: Environmental and developmental matters have long proved key to North Korea’s “revolutionary” industrial and economic strategies. They have equally been important to Pyongyang’s diplomatic and geo-political efforts both during the Warsaw Pact period and in our contemporary era following the collapse of its supportive and collaborative partners. However, while environmental issues … [Read More]
Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea
Although modernization in Korea started more than a century later than in the West, it has worked as a prominent ideology throughout the past century—in particular it has brought radical changes in Korean architecture and cities. Traditional structures and ways of life have been thoroughly uprooted in modernity’s continuous negation of the past. This book … [Read More]
Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea
Although modernization in Korea started more than a century later than in the West, it has been a prominent ideology throughout the past century—bringing radical changes to Korean architecture and cities. Traditional structures and ways of life have been thoroughly uprooted in modernity’s continuous negation of the past. This book presents a comprehensive overview of … [Read More]
The New Asian City: Three-Dimensional Fictions of Space and Urban Form
Under Jini Kim Watson’s scrutiny, the Asian Tiger metropolises of Seoul, Taipei, and Singapore reveal a surprising residue of the colonial environment. Drawing on a wide array of literary, filmic, and political works, and juxtaposing close readings of the built environment, Watson demonstrates how processes of migration and construction in the hypergrowth urbanscapes of the … [Read More]
Deconstruction/Construction: The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project in Seoul
From the publisher’s website: The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon River that runs through Seoul, Korea, in a mere twenty-nine months—transitioning from an outmoded highway into a multipurpose performative infrastructure piece of unprecedented size—merits recognition as a seminal project in contemporary urban design. This remarkable achievement recovers the biological and social ecology of the city and … [Read More]
Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism: Spectacle, Politics and History
While most studies on Korean nationalism centre on textual analysis, Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism offers a different approach. It looks at expositions, museums and the urban built environment at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial eras and analyses their discursive relations in the construction of Korean nationalism. By linking concepts of visual spectacle, urban space … [Read More]
City as Art: 100 Notable Works of Architecture in Seoul
The city of Seoul boasts a long history as a prized territory on the peninsula since the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE-AD 688) and as the national capital for over 600 years of Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). History is bound to leave behind architecture, and Seoul is home to myriad buildings, from those constructed in ancient … [Read More]
Korean Traditional Landscape Architecture
From the publisher’s website: Korean traditional landscape architecture is among the most treasured cultural developments made over the thousands of years of Korean culture. This book illustrates the history and cultural background of Korean traditional landscape architecture, showing the characteristics of each type of Korean landscape architecture: royal palaces, residential areas, walled towns, retreat gardens, … [Read More]
Contemporary Korean Architecture: Megacity Network
Seoul – one of the most densely populated urban areas on the planet. The tremendous pressure this megacity exacts on architecture in terms of spatial intensification, verticalization and amplification, challenges architectural stereotypes and promotes innovation. Megacity Network presents 32 projects by 16 representative Korean architects from the last ten years. Being more like mixtures and hybrids of … [Read More]
Buddhist Architecture of Korea
From the publisher’s website: The easiest way to learn about Korea’s Buddhist culture is to visit the temples where the traditional practice of asceticism is still carried on today. People no longer live in other examples of traditional architecture, such as palaces and Confucian schools and academies; but in temples the monks and nuns eat, … [Read More]
Korea Style
Simplicity, tradition and a deep respect for all things natural–these are the essential elements of Korean design underpinning the nation’s fast-growing creative scene.Influences from China, Japan and the West have filtered into Korea, but the peninsula has always maintained its own identity. Spatial, spiritual and material qualities are reflected in the simple beauty of its … [Read More]
The Culture of Fengshui in Korea: An Exploration of East Asian Geomancy
From the publisher’s website: The term Fengshui, which literally means ‘wind and water,’ is the ancient Chinese art of selecting an auspicious site to provide the most harmonious relationship between human and earth. The term is generally translated as ‘geomancy,’ and has had a deep and extensive impact on Korean, Chinese, and other East Asian … [Read More]
Palaces of Korea
From the publisher’s website: In “Palaces of Korea,” Kim Dong-uk, a renowned historian of Korean architecture, guides readers on a journey through the history of palaces in Korea, daily life and ceremonial events, and palace architecture. However, the author also writes extensively about the similarities and differences between palaces across East Asia, namely Japan and … [Read More]
The Secret Spirit of Korean Architecture
From the publisher’s website: The Secret Spirit of Korean Architecture is a response to the growing international interest in Korean architecture, its tangible historical and contemporary forms, and a multidisciplinary contribution to the discourse that has resulted in new writing and audiovisual materials exploring principal features and themes, materials, techniques and methodologies particular to the genre. … [Read More]