area 105 | artificial landscape

architect: UnSangDong Architects Cooperation

location: Seoul, South Korea

year: 2009

‘Palace of May’ comes into being a symbolic sculpture of ‘Hi Seoul Festival 2009’ in the heart of Seoul, Seoul Plaza. This year the theme of the festival is sustainable and futuristic Seoul by dealing with interchanging between environment, human being and technology. ‘Palace of May Cheon Goong’ is not only a gigantic environmental and urban sculpture but also a landmark of this festival. It consists of 60 pieces of fabric. The maximum length of it is about 200-metre-long. They connects City hall, buildings around the plaza. The scheme is motivated by the concept of Korean traditional sunshade of the Palace, ‘Yong Bong Cha Il’. It means that all the citizens have to be treated like the King and the Queen. This type of sunshade was quite special in bygone days. Even a loyal subject was not allowed to use this and was sentenced to jail due to asking for using it. The aims of the ‘Palace of May’ for the festival are connecting and communicating between buildings, square and streets. It enables the festival would extends all over the city as well as in the Seoul Plaza. This structure is soaring towards sky. Simultaneously it creates a convergent point of the city and of the world. ‘Palace of May’ mix well tradition and high technology. It made the best use of natural sources. Wind, which rises alongside buildings, that contributes to the fluidity. Light, which enters from the white translucent fabric, is the natural element that provides a spectacular space to visitors. ‘Palace of May’, which was just a monotonous plaza as a part of urban space, acts as a conspicuous and brilliant stage. An experimental architect, Jang Yoon Gyoo, is in charge of this project design. He’s been trying to demonstrate that Architecture is the heart of culture. Through this project, Palace of May, he realised a place where people can recharge and relish this festival as best as it can be. In the words of the architect ”Palace of May Cheon Goong is made of clouds in the sky. It is a virtual stream which flows in the space. It has thousands of phases which is changing by sunlight, wind and lighting.” ”Hopefully it will be a modern palace of the festival for all the citizens.” He added.

UnSangDong Architects Cooperation is the experiemental group organized to realize conceptual architecture with these variable possibilities of cultural contents. The main research and project of UnSangDong is based on the diversity of architecture.
In the nearest 2007 UnSangDong received AR Awards from Architectural Review which is world-famous architectural award. In 2006 UnSangDong received Vanguard Award from Architectural Record that is awarded to innovative architect in the world in 2006. In 2001 Yoon Gyoo Jang was selected one of 40 noteworthy international architects by the Japanese journal [10+1]. And last October he gave a lecture at UC Berkeley that the fist lectuer as the Korean architects. Also in 2008 he gave a lecture for RIBA. Jang introduced the idea of ‘space coordinator‘ and showed experimental works at the Seoul Museum of Art Cheonggyechun exhibition. He is presently a professor at the school of architecture, Kookmin University, and a representative of gallery Jungmiso as an establishment to extend cultural codes passing over architecture. He is also leading a new architectural experiment by changing the atelier Jang Yoon Gyoo for theory & experimentation to the UnSangDong Architects Cooperation.