Please join us for the lecture 'Light Monumentality' at Seoul National University, 7pm, School of Architecture, 5th Floor.  The lecture is part of SNU's annual Frontline workshops.  This year SsD is teaching a design workshop at SNU examining contemporary issues of monumentality.

Please join us for the opening reception and roundtable for the NY installation of the exhibit, Convergent Flux, Korea first shown at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Opening Reception and Panel Discussion
Panel: Taewook Cha, Felipe Correa, Mark Rakatansky, and Soo-In Yang, moderated by Jinhee Park and John Hong
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. (panel at 7:00 p.m.)
The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue, 8th Floor

A special thanks to the Harvard GSD, The Korea Society, and The Architectural League of New York for collaborating in sponsoring this event. 

Photo above:  Interactive electronics are being installed by Peter Ortner and Juho Lee of SsD who worked long hours over the weekend to install the exhibit.  Natalee Newcombe (Program Officer of Contemporary Issues at the Korea Society) and Joe Watson also provided crucial help and coordination in the installation.

The Korea Society, the Architectural League of NY, and SsD welcome Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi to discuss their winning master plan and concept design for Taekwondo Park in Muju, Korea. Jinhee Park and John Hong will moderate a discussion after the lecture which is part of a series of disucssions leading up the the opening of the exhibit, Convergent, Flux Korea, curated by Jinhee and John.

Please join us for this lecture, Tuesday, November 9th 630pm at 950 Third Ave, 8th Floor, NYC

The Korea Society and SsD welcome Richard Nemeth, Principal of Kohn Pederson Fox, and Hyunjin Koo, Senior Manager of International Relations at Gale International. to discuss the Songdo International Business District Project in Korea. As the first in a series of lectures leading up to the Convergent Flux, Korea exhibit to be held at the Korea Society, Jinhee and John will moderate a discussion after the lecture. Convergent, Flux Korea, curated by Jinhee Park and John Hong, was first exhibited at the Harvard GSD and will now show at the Korea Society beginning December 6th.

Please join us for this lecture, Tuesday, November 2nd 630pm at 950 Third Ave, 8th Floor, NYC

Please join us for the lecture ‘Strategic Pairings’ by John Hong at the AIA Rhode Island’s 2010 Emerging Architect’s Forum.  The event ‘Defining New Threads and Paths in Architecture’ will be held on October 29th from 6pm-9pm at the Rhode Island School of Design’s BEB Gallery, 231 South Main Street, Providence.

Please join us for a keynote presentation by Jinhee Park, AIA at the AIA state convention in Little Rock, Arkansas.  The event will be held at the Statehouse Convention Center at 1 Statehouse Plaza on October 22nd at 11am.

The concept of ‘minimalism’ in architecture has taken on more or less superficial applications based on a ‘formal’ reading of the term.  In fact this general and colloquial definition of something that merely appears stripped down has the potential to relegate the idea of the minimal to yet another version of a formalist mannerism.

While we are attempting to expand the idea of minimalism and link it to environmental agendas, a host of related concerns arise.  The word ‘minimum’ has recently made a positive re-debut attaching itself to other terms such as ‘footprint’, ‘material’, ‘energy’, ‘water’, etc.  Our larger question is:  What does all this minimiz-ation add up to? (or subtract down to as the case may be).

Our yet emerging response is that Architecture can contribute to a larger cultural shift  instead of just reacting in opposition to ideas of excess through technical means.  In fact a reactionary stance has the danger of merely solidifying and canonizing the very paradigms that are being contested.  Shifts in the logics of perception, in the understanding of the once autonomous object as now contingent, and in the role of strategic indeterminancy are all topics brought forward by minimalist art and music.  An extension of this cultural production through the medium of sustainability can provide new paradigms for the forward evolution of our patterns (and resultant spaces) of inhabitation.

Curated by Jinhee Park and John Hong, the exhibit emerged from a semester-long research project with students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. As the first cross-disciplinary exhibition on Korean Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design mounted in the United States, the featured work exemplifies the interrelated trajectories that mark the contemporary condition in Korea: Six organizational operatives—historical transformation, accelerated density, topographical syntax, material identity, ecological intersection, and infrastructural alliance—map the individual works in a relational field. While this synthetic structure delineates the rich and specific sociocultural ground from which the projects emerge, it also provides a transferability of the concepts embodied in the work to other situations beyond the boundaries of this particular nation. Finally, these mappings allow a temporary critical pause within the accelerated production providing space to re-evaluate the work and positively shape its future evolution.
 

The exhibition draws from the continuously emerging and hybridized condition in contemporary Korean society that has offered such a fertile and dynamic territory for experimentation. The six trajectories converge and diverge organizing the projects in momentary relationships that open up a ground for discussion and critique.

The 6 trajectories begin from the endwall:  as they converge, they become both literal and conceptual intersections from which the content is structured.  As the space moves linearly through the gallery, the hanging panels define 'rooms' where one can pause and form relationships between the projects.  The static content on the walls become further describe each of the six trajectories.
 

View from main entry: the project panels are first understood as a single elevation.

Quotes from the designers, video interviews, and data on Korean urban phenomena are placed on the walls to inform the project panels.

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, introduces the exhibit on opening night, February 5th, 2010.
 

The culminating event was the symposium, 'Convergent Flux: Extended Topographies and the Korean Urban Condition,' in Piper auditorium at the Harvard GSD.  Seung H-Sang, Pai Hyung Min, Suh Hailim, and Park Yoonjin each presented and enganged in a discussion with Jinhee Park and John Hong.

PROJECT CREDITS:

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean, Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design Pat Roberts, Executive Dean Hannah Peters, Associate Dean of External Affairs

curators
John Hong, Adjunct Associate Professor Jinhee Park, Lecturer in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design

advisor
Hailim Suh, Lecturer in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design

exhibition research and design team
(GSD seminar participants under the direction of the curatorial team with Hailim Suh and the Exhibitions Department of the GSD). Christina Cho, Kent Gould, Mark Holmquist, Okhyun Kim, Sooran Kim, Clara Lee, Jinje Lee, Moran Lee, Greg GhunWhan Park, Gyoung Tak Park, Terry Sung Park, Hyun Ji Ryu, John Son, Jeong Jun Song, Kyung Ho Won, Hyun Tek Yoon, Hyung Jae Yu, Seung Ho Choi (photographer)

exhibition team
Dan Borelli, exhibitions Shannon Stecher, Exhibitions and Publications Melissa Vaughn, Publications

GSD fabrication and installation team
Frank Braman, Jef Czekaj, Alex DeMaria, Jack Mauch, Jared May, Reid Schwartz, Dave Stuart, Joanna Vouriotis

historical advisor
Jin Baek, Associate Professor, Penn State University

GSD event photographer
Aaron Orenstein

supporting organizations
Space Magazine, Harvard University, Choi DuNam, Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

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