Modern Atlanta

MA TALKS & ATLANTA HIGH MUSEUM presents Minsuk Cho, Founding Architect at MASS STUDIES

Minsuk Cho, the founding architect of Mass Studies, will give a lecture on their past and present projects.

Mass Studies was founded in 2003 by Minsuk Cho in Seoul, Korea, as a critical investigation of architecture in the context of mass production, intensely over-populated urban conditions, and other emergent cultural niches that define contemporary society. Amid the many frictions defining spatial conditions in the twenty-first century, namely past vs. future, local vs. global, utopia vs. reality, and individual vs. collective, Mass Studies focuses on the operative complexity of these multiple conditions instead of striving for a singular, unified perspective. For each architectural project, which exist across a wide range of scales, Mass Studies explores issues such as spatial systems/matrices, building materials/techniques, and typological divergences to foster a vision that allows the discovery of new socio/cultural potential.


Korea Pavilion, Shanghai World Expo 2010, photo by Kyungsub Shin

Korea Pavilion
The World Expo 2010, held in Shanghai, China, is expected to be the largest world expo to date. The theme of the exposition will be “Better City, Better Life,” and the event is to take place from May 1 until October 31, 2010, with more than 192 participating countries to accommodate the 70 million expected visitors.

The Korea Pavilion is situated in Zone A, directly neighboring the Japan Pavilion and the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, and in close proximity to the China Pavilion. The site is around 6000m2, and it is one of the largest lots within the Expo compound. Located on the perimeter of the zone, the site takes advantage of the views out towards the Huangpu River and the Shanghai skyline in the distance.

With land culture (China) and sea culture (Japan) surrounding the peninsula, Korea has been permeable to imported cultures and global influences, whose progressive mix defines contemporary Korean society. Using ‘convergence’ as the main theme, the Korea Pavilion is an amalgamation of ‘sign’ (symbol) and ‘space’: Signs become spaces, and simultaneously, spaces become signs.

배경
“더 나은 도시, 더 나은 삶”이라는 테마 아래, 2010년 5월 1일부터 10월 31일까지 개최되는 상하이 엑스포 2010은 전세계 약 192 개국, 50개 국제기구, 18개 기업관이 참여, 약 7천만명 (외국인 500만명)이 방문할 것으로 예상되어 역사상 최대 규모가 될 것이라는 전망이다.

장소
한국관은 상하이 엑스포 부지 중 아시아 국가 지역인 A지역에 속해있다. 일본관, 사우디 아라비아관과 이웃하고, 관람객 대다수가 필수적으로 방문하게 될 주최국의 중국관과 가까운 거리에 위치한다. 대지면적은 약 6000m2이며 엑스포 단지 내의 가장 큰 부지 중 하나에 속한다. 북서쪽으로는 황포강을 면하고 있어 멀리 상하이의 스카이라인과 강변으로의 조망 확보가 가능하다.

개요
상반된 대륙적 문화와 해양적 문화를 함께 포용하여 융합적이고 풍부한 문화를 창조할 수 있었던 한국 문화의 특성을 한국관을 통해 부각시키고자 한다. ‘융합’이라는 큰 테마 아래 한국관은 ‘기호(문자)’와 ‘공간’의 융합, 즉 기호가 공간이 되는 동시에 공간이 기호가 되도록 디자인 되었다.


Ann Demeulemeester Shop in Seoul, Korea
photo by Yong-Kwan Kim

Ann Demeulemeester Shop
The site is located in an alley, at a block’s distance from Dosandae-ro – a busy thoroughfare in Seoul’s Gangnam district – in close proximity to Dosan Park. Primarily residential in the past, the neighborhood is undergoing a rapid transformation into an upscale commercial district full of shops and restaurants.

The building is comprised of one subterranean level and three floors above. The Ann Demeulemeester Shop is located on the first floor, with a restaurant above and a Multi-Shop in the basement.

This proposal is an attempt to incorporate as much nature as possible into the building within the constraints of a low-elevation, high-density urban environment of limited space (378㎡). The building defines its relationship between natural/artificial and interior/exterior as an amalgamation, rather than a confrontation.

이 계획안은 서울 강남 도산대로의 한 켜 뒤 골목길에 있으며, 도산공원이 가까운 위치에 있다. 과거 주거 지역이었던 이곳은 최근 Shop들과 레스토랑들이 들어서면서 고급 상업지역으로 급속히 변하고 있다.

건물은 지하 1층, 지상 3층 규모의 건물로서, 1층에는 Ann Demeulemeester Shop, 상부에 레스토랑, 그리고 지하 1층에 위치한 Multi Shop 으로 구성되어있다.

저 층, 고밀도의 주변 도시 조건과 주어진 378㎡ 면적의 협소한 대지 조건에서 자연의 경험을 최대한 건물에 끌어들이려는 시도로써 먼저 이 건물의 자연/인공, 외부/내부의 관계는 대치의 관계가 아닌 융화(amalgamation)의 관계로 정의한다.

세 개의 주된 프로그램을 구성하는 각각의 상이한 조건을 가진 실내 공간들이 다양한 방식으로 최대한 외부 공간의 일부로써 인지되고 이용될 수 있도록 하였고, 외부에서 경험되는 건축물 자체도 단순한 하나의 object서의 건물이라기 보다는 자연과 인공 사이 어느 지점에서의 혼성적 유기물로서 (synthetic organism) 경험될 수 있도록 계획하였다.




Minsuk Cho, Founding Partner at MASS STUDIES, photo by Sukmu Yun

Minsuk Cho, AIA, Principal
Minsuk Cho was born in Seoul and graduated from the Architectural Engineering Department of Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) and the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University (New York, USA). He began his professional career working for Kolatan/MacDonald Studio, and Polshek and Partners in New York, and later moved to the Netherlands to work for OMA. Through these jobs, he gained experience in a wide range of architectural and urban projects implemented in various locations. With partner James Slade, he established Cho Slade Architecture in 1998 in New York City to be engaged in various projects both in the U.S. and Korea. In 2003, he came back to Korea to open his own firm, Mass Studies.

Cho has received many awards, including first prize in the 1994 Shinkenchiku International Residential Architecture Competition, the Architectural League of New York’s “Young Architects Award” in 2000 for his work at Cho Slade Architecture, and two U.S. Progressive Architecture Awards (Citations) in 1999 and 2003. Boutique Monaco was named a finalist for the International Highrise Award (DAM) in 2008 and nominated again for S-trenue in 2010. Recently, the Korea Pavilion was awarded the Silver Medal by the B.I.E. in the category of Architectural Design for the World Expo 2010 Shanghai, as well as a Presidential Citation from Korea. His work was exhibited at La Biennale di Venezia for Dalki Theme Park in 2004, and for Different but Same Houses in 2010. He was also a part of the Open House travelling exhibition from 2006 to 2008, the New Trends of Architecture in Europe and Asia Pacific 2006–2007 traveling exhibit, and has been an active lecturer and participant in symposiums worldwide. His representative works include “Pixel House,” “Dalki Theme Park,” “Nature Poem,” “Boutique Monaco,” “Seoul Commune 2026,” “S-Trenue,” “Ann Demeulemeester Shop,” “Ring Dome,” “Xi Gallery,” and “World Expo 2010 Shanghai: Korea Pavilion.”

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