Some Thoughts for Happy Turn | 31 May - 4 Jun 2024

Architecture can only be explained through architecture itself.

An architect seeks the value of existence through building.

Everyone spends a lifetime trying to grasp the essence of what they do, yet most lives seem to stop just short of it.

In the end, architecture too will pass and only thought will remain, but because architecture is a form of action, it must still be lived and practiced.

Leaving behind a modernist education that taught us to strip away all decoration to face pure essence, I entered professional practice without resolving doubts and misunderstandings. By then, the world I encountered already seemed to have moved on; to another idea, to postmodernism or deconstruction. Yet practice in the 1990s demanded something else. In an era that prized growth and efficiency, we were expected to believe that true creation came from absolutely nothingness. Zero degree, where all forms disappear, where square refers to nothing at all, and to work under that belief.

Despite many years of teaching and study, school still felt vaguely frightening. I found myself in a place I had never imagined, and that alone felt awkward. Unprepared, like an inexperienced soldier sent into an unexpected war, I entered a third turning point without even the clarity to feel shame about what I lacked. I had to learn in haste just to manage the next day’s class.

Architecture is a field where knowledge is formed only through on-site testing and direct experience, and only then can it be taught. Because of this, it always felt precarious. After returning to school, I spent several years setting practice aside and giving everything I had, yet it was hard to escape intellectual lack and scarcity. As is often the case, opportunities for practice came sooner than I expected or planned, beginning with buildings on campus, and every one of them felt like a gift. Still, the ability to build is like muscle – it fades quickly. I learned firsthand that architecture driven by anything less than urgency fails to become architecture at all. At times the scale did not suit me, and a lack of competitiveness led to predictable results. After experiencing a few realized projects that came unexpectedly, I repeatedly resolved never to build again, only to abandon that decision each time.

Even so, I am grateful and glad to be standing once again at a point where I can fully commit to architecture. To be honest, this is largely because I have few other choices or changes beyond being deeply obsessed with it. The desire to engage with architecture more seriously, and the jealousy born from my own clumsy arrogance each time I face it, may yet become the energy that carries me forward. Now, I hope my architecture will think through its essence and carry a sense of depth and dignity.

To this end, I am preparing opportunities for practice that challenge extremes outside the range once thought possible in modernism, or that attempt what was believed incompatible; such as a “modern baroque”, or a shared concept between pluralism, Darwin and Nietzsche. Through processes of placing, mixing, layering, repeating and breaking apart, I seek to generate new forms or to build freer relationships.

This exhibition marks the beginning of that preparation. It is somewhat embarrassing and awkward, but the traces that have stayed with me over the years were not easy to discard, so I chose to present them as they are and part from them here. My interest in architecture has never been free from doubt, but I hope the will to build is read as a simple truth: a life not lived according to one’s passion is meaningless. Excellence in architecture grows from a humble attitude toward its time, and that attitude is the path to the insight that allows buildings to outlive the era in which they are made.

'이러다가 언젠가는 아주

시동이 안 걸릴 때가 올 것이다.

그래도 그때까지는

열심히 살아야지

오래 묵은 자동차로 끌고 가듯

세상 속으로들어간다!

*Poem by Ra Taejoo

Some Thoughts for Happy Turn : 이공희

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