Blue Crow Media has released its latest map exploring brutalist concrete architecture in Seoul, South Korea. The map is edited by Korea University-based architectural historian Professor Hyon-sob Kim, with original photography by Yongjoon Choi. The guide offers a unique look at Seoul’s unsurpassed history of concrete architecture from the 1960s to today.
Concrete Seoul Map is a two-sided, bilingual guide including a map of Seoul and details of over fifty selected concrete buildings. Concrete construction, heralded by renowned architects such as Swoo-geun Kim, is now the signature of many Korean architects. This map highlights the most unique and influential examples of concrete buildings and structures across the city. Architects featured include Chung-up Kim, Swoo-geun Kim, MVRDV, Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Sae-min Oh, Hee-soo Kwak, and many others.
Professor Hyon-sob Kim writes in the map’s introduction, “From early on, Korean architects explored expressive qualities of concrete in architecture, with or without other materials. If Chung-up Kim, who had apprenticed in Le Corbusier’s office in Paris, showed the romantic plasticity of concrete through the French Embassy in Seoul (1962), Swoo-geun Kim’s Sewoonsangga (1967-70) revealed the power of the concrete megastructure. Contemporary architecture in Seoul is developing more abundant and sensitive vocabularies of concrete: such as unification of the structure and expression of buildings with a delicate treatment of concrete; Brutalist approaches to the material for ethical or aesthetical reasons; and new prefabrication systems utilising ultra-high performance concrete panels.”
The bilingual map is in both Korean and English, and serves as a curated city guide companion and an introduction to Seoul’s unique architecture.
