In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

With the division between North and South an inescapablerealityinthe1960s ,acompetitivepursuitofnational identity led to the formation of a unique cultural topography on the Korean peninsula. Architecture espoused regionalism, with talented architects looking to their own culture for the first time to find an identity predicated on a thorough rupture from the modernism of the colonial period. In their major works, these architects drew on classic examples from traditional Korean architecture , finding in them spatial ideals for the expression of Korean cultural identity and generative diagrams that continue to influence the design activities of Korean architects to this day. In the architectural discourse of the period, attention was given at various points to the diverse aspects of regionalism, the transformation of traditional formal systems, the utilization of evocative architectural languages in the service of national identity, and the derivation of useful spatial patterns from the urban tissue of traditional villages. Tradition, Identity, and Modernity Regionalism, as a key term in the architectural discourse of the developmental period, covered a wide range of attitudes, so our first task is to define the relationship between modernism and regionalism. Modernism in architecture has usually been seen as a form that claimed universality and the worldwide application of certain values; its enemy was regional differentiation.1 Regionalism, in its turn, was regarded as a form of resistance to modernism’s cultural dominance.2 Today this opposition perpetuates a nostalgic paradigm and fails to reflect the globalization that has fundamentally altered the world. Nowadays, locality does not stand in opposition to the global but is merely one aspect of globalization. Global culture actually consists of the increasing interconnectedness of many local cultures, both large and small.3 Furthermore, a close look at the development of modern architecture reveals that “even in 20th century architecture, with its emphasis on international movement, much of the truest and most seminal invention has had regional roots.”4 Instead, regionalism can be defined from a different angle—that is, from both sides of the modern. If the modern, as Hegel put it, represents a newly emerged present time,5 it should have the following two aspects: the present arising out of the future, and the present fading into the past. The avant-garde is composed of intellectuals who dedicate their artistic and intellectual energy to embodying the as-yet-unidentified realities arising out of the future. In contrast, regionalist architects take on the challenge of establishing connections with preexisting local and regional characteristics. Thus, avant-garde and regionalist architects work as an integrated machine emerging out of the present context. If we accept this supposition, the regionalism of modern times does not refer to something stagnant and immovable, but is closely bound to an incessantly changing, contemporaneous reality. Today’s architects feel burdened when dealing with the question of regional and national identity because it forces them to confront the challenge of transmuting changing realities into a fixed center. The second issue in clarifying regionalism is the sharp line drawn between East Asia and the West. For the most part, the various adjectives that congregate around the concept of regionalism—regional, local, provincial, vernacular, and traditional—have delicate shadings of meaning. The relationship between “local” and “traditional” is particularly controversial. It is notable that the two words refer to the same phenomenon , yet imply opposite ways of perceiving it. Anything “local” is perceived as such from the standpoint of a value or culture that is dominant in a number of regions; calling that same phenomenon “traditional,” however, is a sign that a dominant value or culture has adjusted to regional specificity. In East Asia, there was originally no equivalent for the English word “tradition.” To render it, the Japanese scholars who translated unfamiliar Western concepts into Japanese during the Meiji period invented the term “dentou,” referring to each The Quest for Architectural Identity Chapter 6 82 Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea region’s identity and sense of its own cultural continuity when confronting Western culture. This term spread throughout East Asia, but its meaning has changed over time. In architectural discourse, while the concept of locality, or what is “local,” still expresses the perspective of Westerners who wish to diffuse modern architecture in non-Western regions, invoking “tradition” represents the values of non-Westerners who not only accept modern culture but seek to localize it. Architectural discourse during the developmental period was shaped by the intersection of these two perspectives. Le Corbusier’s Regionalism In the 1950s and 1960s, regionalism surfaced...

Share