Jungmyo

Jongmyo is a place beyond the human scale of architecture. It is a royal ancestral shrine. The first monument built in what is now modern day Seoul, it maintains a gravity in the modern city, unlike the palaces of Changgyeong-gung, to the north and Gyeongbok-gung, to the west. The temple pavilions are simplistic modules. Drawn across a monumental horizontal length.

The temples are about passage. The doors dont shut flush, their faces ajar. This allows the spirits a passage into the building, when the doors are shut to mortals.

This is England. Park Hill, Sheffield

Back to England. On a trip to Sheffield we visit the exemplar project of park hill. This infamous building has a wonderful relationship with its landscape. Its levels remain consistent, at the top of  the hill it traverses, it is a 4 storey block, by the base of the hill, 18 storeys. 

central internal space, the blocks emptied for regeneration

upper 4-storey arm.

tall collonade, and walkways in the sky

childrens park, seoul

Some more photos. These are from a quick visit to Childrens grand park. This is a reuse project by Joh Sung-yong. He has converted a modernist clubhouse into a cafe and open adventure space. Interesting idea and much of the existing building has been nicely restored, key components kept. The new insertions are less successful, spacially it is nice to see such a building opened up to the outside and the park.

from the entrance walkway, the patterns of concrete

The coffee courtyard, the old floorplate has been opened to form an external seating area

The courtyard pool 

a detail of ribbed concrete

The floor opening above entrance foyer

a window replaced with cor-ten lining

siza in paju

On our latest visit to paju we had the chance to look around Alvaro Siza’s gallery. This photo study illustrates my favourite spaces.

external garden

the top floor courtyard garden

internal gallery

sketch of the entrance recess

a coffee in paju

Haneul park, world cup stadium, seoul

On an autumn day I went to see the sunset with a friend. Haneul park is situated above the world cup stadium in western seoul. After following the pathway winding around the base of the mountain you come to a plateau. This bowl like area at the top of the mountain has been converted into a public space. Around the parks perimeter are a series of viewing platforms. In its centre a bowl for 360 degree views of the city beyond. This bowl is a blot on the landscape, but the space that is below has some interesting ideas. The park is made of reedbeds of pampas grass. The grass fluctuates with the seasons. In autumn it is a lushious bed of head high, thick, grass. The trails through the park feel much like finding your way through a reedbed in the suffolk countryside. In spring this space is quite different. The beds of grass die down and the space is an open public space. The paths redundant, it is then a grassland meadow. This fluctuation is an interesting concept between agriculture and city space. Agricultural or landscape offers different uses throughout the year. As the season changes the park has a different relationship to its place in the city, and to the people who use it.

view to the city through the pampas grass

a view out to seoul and the river han

the park in spring as an open meadow

looking to south seoul 

head high grass pathways

paju book city

the secret garden

Changgdeok-Gung palace and gardens 1830

Deep within Changgdeok-gung palace is a garden of great relevance and understated beauty. This garden was where the king would take rest. Behind the walls of the palace the topography changes and the many garden pavilions sit across the forests topography. There are two particular buildings of interest in the garden. The servants quarters are some of the most spacially interesting traditional korean traditional buildings I have seen. The building surrounding the courtyard is raised around half a metre above ground level. The internal perimeter is lined with a bench for resting and entering the sleeping quarters. Inside the quarters there is a great sense of calm, the paper walls and blinds give a sense of transparent enclosure, you can still hear the wind and feel the rattle of the crickets outside.

The second building or area is right at the end of the tour. This is the productive garden. A series of three pavilions with a water irrigation channel and feature running through the centre. This space is reminiscent of Soswaewon. The third pavilion is surrounded in small rice paddies. It is a small model of productive agriculture integrating a very beautiful irrigation system to make the agriculture a place of relaxation, giving it a special sense of place.

the glass house

One of my favourite modern buildings I have seen in Seoul so far. This is an art gallery near Anguk station. The glass facade lets you read all the way through the building. The proportion of the openings here are very beautiful. Also one of my favourite photos I have taken, the window inside is like a passage through to the sky. The incorporation of greenery between the new glass and the old brick forms a natural threshold to the interior.

vertical shopping

Spending some time back in Seoul. On the search for ice cream we found an interesting shopping centre in Insadong. The centre is made by an american firm Kroiz architecture. Its arrangement is reminiscent of the guggenheim, new york.  The ground floor courtyard filled with small traders leads up to a countinuos ramp which slopes up the interior of the courtyard to a roof terrace. This project is not stunning architecturally, saying that it is a place people really enjoy, it is a brilliant use of a tricky site. One of the nicest spaces is the gallery, see above, which wraps around the front of the building on the third floor.