At DDP through March 31
The History of Yeouido Sibeom Apartments
The DDP collaborative exhibition <Observation and Documentation of Architecture Made Everyday> runs through March 31 at Gallery Moon in the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (hereinafter DDP).
A building is recorded and evaluated in its brand-new state right after completion, but it settles into everyday life as it coexists with people and changes accordingly. Eight artists from different fields interpret, each through their own lens, the stories held within buildings that have transformed over time.
The exhibition began by capturing how a building changes after its completion through the intervention of its users and various other factors over time. Contrasting a building's original form as created by the supplier with the form that has continuously changed to accommodate users' needs, it prompts reflection on where the true value of architectural design lies.
The subject of observation for this exhibition is the Yeouido Sibeom Apartments, Korea's first complex-style high-rise apartments. Completed in October 1971, they were selected as the subject because, over some 50 years, they have faithfully preserved the traces of continuous change made to accommodate residents' needs in response to shifts in people's lifestyles and living environments.
Among older buildings, the Yeouido Sibeom Apartments are one of the early apartments built in Yeouido during the industrialization era, when Seoul was expanding rapidly. As a complex-style high-rise equipped with elevators and central heating, they are significant for presenting a prototype of middle-class collective housing.
The exhibition takes the more-than-50-year-old Yeouido Sibeom Apartments as its subject of observation and consists of works in which eight artists active in different fields—architects, photographers, painters, and others—reinterpret, each through their own lens, this subject as it has changed over time. The works are expressed through a variety of media, including text, photographs, diagrams, and drawings, and are presented across a total of eight spaces, including the introduction.
▲ Apartment Cataloging vol.1: Corridors and Sashes of Yeouido Apartments (Kang Nan-hyung, Jung Da-eun)