VOL.81/2025.04

The New Waves of Hallyu: K-Design and K-Architecture

Korean architect’s pick

2025.03.10

A new trend that emerged from Korea, a country at the eastern tip of Asia, which seems to be hanging on to the continent, is called Hallyu (Korean Wave), or Korean Wave. Korea is a unique country that experienced colonization by a neighboring country that ended its dynastic era, then went through division, civil war, and repeated dictatorships and regime changes in less than a century. As the country’s culture regains its footing along with its hard-earned economic development, it is also consolidating into a universality that resonates with the world, drawing on sensitivities expressed in music and film, localities such as food and customs, and narratives through literature.
It is clear that K-design and K-architecture will be the next focus of Hallyu. However, Korea’s architectural culture has not been able to display its identity compared to that of China and Japan, which appeared on the world stage early on. Architecture is the spatial environment that embodies culture, and the urban landscape in which it is gathered is a tangible cultural phenomenon that appears alongside the natural environment; however, its true nature has not been introduced. In order to strip away the oriental categories represented by China and Japan and understand the unique entities that have occurred and are about to happen in this country, an approach to traditional architecture would be the first step, but a backtracking method to understand the current situation would be helpful. I recommend The Flames of Architecture (Spacetime) by architectural critic Jeon Jin-Sam and Korea’s Architectural History (Suryusanbang) by Professor Lee Jong-Geon.

In his book, Jeon Jin-Sam examines the current development of contemporary architecture in Korea and proposes solutions to the problems it faces. Compared to the history of architecture in the West, he looks at the short history of Korean contemporary architecture that has been interacting with a foreign culture and identifies what is being created.

Lee Jong-Geon views the process of “producing architecture” and its results as an event. Thus, he identifies architectural culture as a result of social conditions and examines how social issues are connected to the values of the public that accept architecture. While his criticism is cynical in the sense that there is no effect without a cause, it is also interwoven with a positive perspective to understand Korean architectural culture and hope for its development.

Written by Kim In-Cheurl (Chief architect of Archium)