작업 소개

김중업 다이얼로그 전시의 협력 기획 및 구성을 진행한 삼삼오오 이성민 총괄 프로듀서의 섭외로 전시에 참여하였다. 김중업 아카이브 자료를 바탕으로 그의 작품 세계를 조망하는 영상 작품과 함께 작업한 동료 건축가, 작가, 평론가 등을 인터뷰한 시리즈 영상을 전시장에 상영하였다.

김중업의 삶과 예술철학을 다룬 ‘김중업건축론-시적 울림의 세계’를 편찬한 정인하 교수가 김중업의 작품 세계를 말한다.

‘김중업 선생님에게는 (건축이) 아마 삶 그 자체였다고 생각합니다. 그리고 건축을 통해서 본인이 생각하시는 모든 이상과 열정, 비전을 담으시려고 했던 게 아닌가 생각합니다.’

‘It would have been life itself to him. He seems to have sought to reflect in architecture all his ideals, passion, and vision.’

정인하 (한양대학교 건축학부 교수)
Inha Jung (professor of architecture, Hanyang University)

프로젝트 내용

《김중업 다이얼로그》전은 한국 현대 건축의 신화적 인물인 건축가 김중업을 조망한다. 하지만 이 전시는 그동안 김중업에 관한 피상적인 진단과 신화화된 측면과는 거리를 두고, 예술과 건축의 관계를 매개로 그동안 논의되지 않았던 다양한 맥락 속에서 작가와 그가 남긴 유산을 살펴보는 전시다. 김중업의 타계 30주기를 기념하기 위해 마련된 이 전시는 한국 현대 건축 전시를 꾸준히 기획해온 국립현대미술관이 김중업건축박물관과 공동으로 준비했다. 건축가 김중업의 생애 전반을 조망하는 첫 대규모 전시로서, 김중업건축박물관의 소장품과 국립현대미술관의 아카이브, 그리고 건물주로부터 대여한 자료들과 사진 및 영상 신작으로 구성했다.

1922년 평양에서 출생한 김중업은 르코르뷔지에 아틀리에에서 실무를 한 뒤 한국전쟁 이후 초토화된 한국 땅에서 한국적 모더니즘을 구현하고자 한 건축가다. 그는 임시수도 부산에서 만난 예술가들과의 네트워크를 기반으로 한국 문화예술계 중심에서 활동하며 예술가 들을 후원하고, 그들과의 협업을 오랜 기간 진행했다. 한국에서 최초의 건축 전시회를 열기도 한 김중업은 전시라는 문화양식을 일찍부터 이해하고 실천한 사람이다. 그는 건축을 건물로 한정하지 않고 담론의 문제로 보고 예술매체에 대한 깊이 있는 탐구를 진행했다. 그러한 사유의 흔적은 그가 남긴 이미지 아카이브에서 발견할 수 있다.

《김중업 다이얼로그》전은 역순으로 진행되는 김중업의 작품 연대기를 첫 번째 대화의 시작으로 연다. 그리고 ‘세계성과 지역성’, ‘예술적 사유와 실천’, ‘도시와 욕망’, ‘기억과 재생’ 등 4개의 주제로 그간 김중업과 그의 작품에 관해 주변부에 머물렀던 문맥들을 펼쳐보이고자 한다. 특히 이번 전시는 그간 논의가 부족했던 김중업의 후기 작업들과 한국의 중요한 예술가들과의 협업 과정, 도시에 대한 그의 생각들을 살펴보는 기회가 될 것이다. 《김중업 다이얼로그》는 이제 막 촉발되기 시작한 한국 건축가 연구의 출발점으로서 건축, 예술 그리고 우리 사회의 다양한 관계망들과 대화의 장을 여는 단초가 되리라 기대한다.

출처: 국립현대미술관 홈페이지 전시소개글

How should an architect’s life be understood?

As for modern Korean architectural history, the 1950-60s, when Kim was active, can be called the “development decades.” In the ’60s, a military regime was in power politically, the nation grew by leaps and bounds economically, and the Cold War between the two Koreas was underway. In this atmosphere, the architect made choices, projecting his ideas on architecture in ways he wanted. These are very important for understanding his architectural works.

What would have been architects’ role in such a time of change?

Among many changes since the modern age, urbanization was the one that most affected not only architects but also everyone in daily life. As many came to live in concentration in one place, unique ways of life arose. Architects pondered much on how to materialize and spatialize urbanization experienced in Korea and new ways of life arising from it. In that respect, we must examine their role in detail.

Unable independently to achieve modernity, Koreans passively accepted modernity created outside, and that happened very late. Because we underwent colonial rule and a civil war, the conditions were against architects’ stable activities. As a result, the issue of how to embrace modernity and how to express our architecture arose for the first time in Kim’s generation. Various proposals and ideas were presented in that respect, and Kim’s strong interest in plastic aspects was a crucial role and contribution.

What would be the features of housing designed by Kim?

According to many scholars, private space was born in the modern era. Architects can differ in approaches to building such space. Some stress and reflect the existing order in spaces,the hierarchy in people’s ways of life and daily customs. Others develop, more logically and conceptually, spaces that we grasp through prolonged experience and life. Seen thus, spatially, housing designed by Kim was a conceptually unexplainable kind of a landscape he’d experienced and grasped for long after birth and growth. He expressed in the housing he designed very primal feelings submerged in his consciousness. They were ways of expressing in housing design the sizes of spaces, connections between rooms, and functions of rooms in traditional houses. He was more experimental in cases like the lambda-shaped house, Lee Gyeong-ho’s house, Sul Won-sik’s house, Lee Ganghong’s They were plastic and spatial experiments possible only in housing and difficult in big buildings. They more faithfully reflect experiences gainedfrom many other housing projects
and primal sense.

Please tell us about Kim’s activities in Japan in the early 1940s or after return to Korea.

As an architect, Kim underwent many ups and downs. We can point out two big turning points in his life. The first turning point was when he worked and learned at Le Corbusier’s studio for 3 years and 2 months from 1952. This period had a dominant influence all his life and thus was an important turning point. There’s a clear difference in the tendency of his works before and after this period. Before that, the tendency of his works was a bit vaguely mixed. Professor Nakamura Junpei at Yokohama Higher Technical School taught students in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts style, for example. So an architectural tendency according to the Beaux-Arts system would have been important for Kim during his school years. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts is a school that played a crucial role in the so-called eclectic architecture from the latter half of the 19th century to the early 20th century. In particular, one of the important roles played by this school was to mix past stylistic motifs suitably and present design methods suited to various programs demanded by modern society, especially public programs. when he first studied architecture. Working at a Japanese architectural design firm after graduation, he would have been under more functional and modern influence. It’s because modern architecture had already been embracedand began to be dominant in Japan in the 1930s. But as Kim began to work at Le Corbusier’s studio in the 1950s, he came to be very strongly influenced. This period was a very big turning point. After returning from France, he explored the localityof Korean architecture mainly based on Le Corbusier’s architecture. Buildings like the French embassy in Seoul,Administration Building of Jeju National University, and the Memorial Service Hall and the Main Gate of the UN Memorial Cemetery represent such influence.

The second turning point was his half-forced exile abroad during 1971-78. In this period, he was barely able to work. Staying in France and America, he encountered and studied changed trends in contemporary architecture. Works he presented after returning to the country in 1978 showed changes from earlier ones. One of the important features of his works from the 1960s is a split between very modern buildings and Korean-style ones. For example, very functional buildings like the Samil Building show influence from Mies van der Rohe rather than Le Corbusier.Other buildings show strongly local characteristics. These two seem to have been divided in the architect’s mind. He seems to have tried to combine them, however he could, in the works he designed after returning to the country in 1978. For example, he presented new shapes with the Korea Army Museum and the new annexof the Korean Educational Development Institute and seems to have tried to unravel in his own way his primal consciousness, something inherent in him for long like menhirs and stone graves, for example, than focusing on locality. But, unfortunately, such a creative period didn’t last long. I remember it was 1983. After that, battling illness, he seems to have lost many creative ideas of his youth. What he unfolded for around 4-5 years after returning in 1978 was an architectural world on a level different from the earlier one. Seen thus, there were two big turning points and, with them in the center, diverse architectural changes. That was Kim’s architectural world to me.

It’s intriguing that images harbored as a child should appear in the architect’s work.

Though it’s been overlooked due to Le Corbusier’s strong influence on his Kim’s works, the landscape he saw in Pyongyang and, earlier, in his childhood, in Songchon County and Pyongan Province in what’s North Korea now or what he experienced in the period, when he was very impressionable, lay in his mind all his life, and he would have pondered on how to interpret and reflect it in his buildings.In my view, primal experiences inherent in him burst out more richly and powerfully when he was older. I don’t know why. In youth, you can be affected far more stronglyby ideas, contemporary tendencies, trends, external conditions. In my view, such things dissolved a bit more as Kim aged, and ideas, experiences, and primal impressions inside manifested themselves more strongly. Such a tendency is characteristic of his later works.

Can Kim’s architecture be called “Korean”?

In my view, something called “Koreanness” arose in the process through which Kim derived the best methods under the given conditions of his life. In that process, the architect’s dispositionor the ideas he wished to project came into play. We can define “Koreanness” from diverse angles. For example, if Kim stressed plastic aspects, Kim Swoo Geun focused on spatial aspects. Others like Itami Jun talk more of materiality or materials’ textures and tactility. So such methods can differ and change according to an architect’s disposition,or the disposition that manifests itself under the surrounding conditions. Kim was especially interested in the plasticity of roofs, and the issue of expressing plasticity from the past with contemporary materials like exposed concrete, glass, steel was an important topic.

Since Kim, the issue of tradition as seen by architects today has been deeply linked to contemporary architectural discourse in the nation. The most important part of contemporary architectural discourse is the landscape in my view. Recent works like the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, and Nodeul Island, for example show very unique ways of organizing urban landscapes. In the West, the viewpoint is that the subject interprets nature. In contrary, nature in Korea allows participation by a far greater variety of subjects and perspectives. You characteristically find such things in the Soswaewon garden and other traditional landscapes, where landscapes aren’t interpreted by one subject from a building but there’s room for participation by diverse people, visitors, residents and interpretation from their respective viewpoints. These are the more “Korean” features. Disparate features arise because of disparate ways of interpreting and grasping nature. Contemporary South Korean architects,especially those who’ve designed important public buildings, show very Korean characteristics in how they interpret landscapes.

Kim even called himself a “classicist” once, didn’t he?

There are many ways to understand classics. According to my interpretation, a classic constitutes a more closed thought system with a certain, past archetype. It means there are values and ideals to be pursued. There’s a model that must be followed.It’s unimportant whether the Parthenon or Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp is the model. Seen thus, in the process of Kim’s birth and growth, it was a process of faithfully following and modifying modern architecture, a model created by someone in the past. He seems to have called himself a “classicist” in that respect.But I don’t think you’re a classicist only when you use commonly available ornamental motifs like columns and pediments
That seems to have been the fate of most modern East Asian architects
in the process of accepting modernity.

Shall we discuss architect Kim’s legacy in South Korean architecture today?

Kim’s influence must be understood from a more multilayered perspective. First and directly, a visible relation is formed in terms of architectural forms. Though I’ve studied and examined Kim for long, I have new perspectives now, too. It’s especially true of the understanding of space in his buildings. In the past, space only meant interior space. But, now, the viewpoint is to combine the exterior and the interior. So, from the perspective of landscapes, his concept of space must be expanded further. Such things can influence architects today, too. Interpretations of an architect don’t stop in a certain era but are continued in other eras, too, thus leading to new interpretations. Such things can enrich that architect and South Korean architecture, too. Kim designed very diverse kinds of buildings They can be classified into types by program and function. But, with some programs, it’s hard to make bold plastic attempts. In such cases, he took comparatively functional approaches. Representative are office buildings and some college buildings. His technical contributions show mainly in office buildings. With the Samil Building, he used a steel curtain wall for the first time in South Korea. Of course, steel frame buildings were built even earlier. But this was the first perfect realization of the Mies-style glass skyscraper in the nation. That’s why the building was introduced for some time as one symbolic of the country’s fast economic growth. Such were his important technical contributions. The design for the Tokyu Hotel showed a strong tendency to stress the structure’s technical, constructive aspects though the idea couldn’t be fully realized during construction.

What should we do with the tangible and intangible value left with buildings?

With buildings, you move on to the issue of preservation as time passes. But because preservation differs from design intentions in logic, it’s hard to say conclusively what’s right or wrong. In my view, the best principle of preservation is to preserve and maintain the original forms maximally. But that’s very difficult to do in reality. You inevitably have to introduce contemporary methods into such aspects because you often can’t reproduce materials or past construction methods. The most important thing is to preserve wholly the original forms at the time of their construction. Generally, when writing history, architectural historians make certain choices. They can’t describe all buildings that have been built. They only describe a limited number of buildings.Buildings that interest architectural historians or theorists can be classified according to two criteria. The first is whether a building can symbolically represent the era that the architect lived in. For example, we try to preserve cases like the Seoul City Hall and the old building of the head office of the Bank of Korea. They are buildings that can represent and explain the Japanese colonial era underwent by Korea. So the Samil Building and several buildings designed by Kim show and represent important aspects of the development decades.The second criterion is architecture’s autonomous logic. It can be an aesthetic one, too.Anyway, there are cases where you must explain a particular building in order to explain today’s architecture,an important precedent for explaining the subsequent development of buildings themselves.In that case, the building is cited as crucial. If both conditions are met, a building is worth preserving and can even become cultural heritage.