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Architects: _SYSTEM LAB
- Area: 919 m²
- Year: 2012
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Professionals: Paul Smith + Core Design, Geo Hyun Construction











PWFERRETTO, a practice split between London and Seoul, have won second place in a competition to design the National Park and Memorial in the Republic of Korea's capital. In materialising the boundary of the site into an "active monument" that reconnects the forgotten history of the park into "a memorial for the Catholic martyrs who lost their life fighting for their beliefs," the design hinges around the site's constant struggle between belonging and being excluded from the city it is a part of. This paradoxical "inclusive / exclusive" premise is the starting point for the designers' conceptual approach.

How has the advancement of the Modern Movement design ethos, through geo-political expansion from the Western world, challenged the cultural foundation and aesthetic heritage of Asia?
The 13th International Docomomo Conference, hosted in Asia for the first time, seeks to explore the powerful complexities of expansion and conflict. Examining the effects of the expansion of a Eurocentric design philosophy into distinctly individual, pre-existing yet violently colonized cultures, the organization declares that "conflict is not necessarily a pejorative but…a challenge for the future."

