Architecture and Heritage: Unearthing Future

Architecture and Heritage: Unearthing Future continues the legacy of the 2012 and 2017 Deoksugung Outdoor Project acclaimed for presenting contemporary art in the old palace, this year bringing together Korean cultural heritage and contemporary architecture. The exhibition introduces works by five architects: Space Popular, CL3, Bureau Spectacular, OBBA, and Obra Architects.

On the occasion of the centennial of Emperor Gojong’s passing and the March First Independence Movement, the exhibition poses a new interpretation of the Korean Empire’s dream for future city at the beginning of modernism. The architects, all active in Asia, the region that shared the turbulent times of open ports and modernization, staged their installations against Korea’s living cultural heritage.

Framed by the Gwangmyeongmun Gate inside Deoksugung Palace is Gate of Bright Lights by Space Popular (Lara Lesmes, Fredrik Hellberg), a design firm founded in Thailand and now active across the globe. Inspired by the name of the gate, “gate of bright lights,” the duo installed a digital screen that emanates bright lights to invite the audience into an ever-changing virtual space. They fostered their interest in the patterns of dancheong through a workshop with a dancheong restoration expert during their seven-month preparation for the exhibition.

In the courtyard of Hamnyeongjeon Hall, which used to house Emperor Gojong’s bedchamber, is Furniture for an Emperor in Transition by CL3 (William Lim), an architectural design studio in Hong Kong. Lim designed six furniture forms with combined inspirations from the imperial palanquins and furniture, and the contours of the 20th century Western experimental design such as Charlotte Perriand’s lounge chair. Sitting down on the work, visitors can envision the life of the imperial family during the Korean Empire when the East and the West came vis-à-vis.

OBBA (Lee Sojung, Kwak Sangjoon), the winner of the 2018 Young Artist Award (architecture category) with the Minister’s commendation from the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of Korea, presents Daehan Yeonhyang in front of Junghwajeon Hall. In the past, versatile apparatuses such as screens and sunshades were used temporarily to recreate the front yard for yeonhyang (court banquets). Inspired by such traditional structures, the work interacts with ever-changing wind via dichroic films to simultaneously scatter light and cast ornate shadows resembling a dance. Through the work, the duo proposes flexible thinking, value, and space required today.

In the garden near Seokjojeon Hall is Future Archeologist by Bureau Spectacular led by Jimenez Lai, a Taiwanese Canadian architect. Lai represented Taiwan at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. He imagines a vertical view of the relationship between the ground surface and us in a few centuries, akin to the earth’s strata forming from dirt accumulated over time. The platforms afloat in the air connected by stairs take the visitors to a point in the future, where they can look down at the year 2019 as a distant past.

Finally, in MMCA Seoul Museum Madang, the museum’s central yard, is Perpetual Spring, a 120m2 pavilion by Obra Architects (Jennifer Lee and Pablo Castro), a Seoul City Government’s Public Architect. By maintaining spring weather inside the pavilion, the work aspires to perpetuate the climatic condition propitious to progressive movements for free and just society; spring has become a poetic expression in human history as referred to in Prague Spring and Arab Spring. Throughout the exhibition, the pavilion will hold various events organized by the museum as well as the public. To organize an event, please visit: www.perpetualspring.org.

Co-organized by
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
Deoksugung Palace Management Office.

Sponsored by
SeAH Steel