Although I only saw a few, Korea has some magnificent architecture. Given my interest, i visited a few of them extensively.

Dongdemun Design Plaza, Seoul

I remember seeing the images of this building, and not really understanding what was going on. Not much clearer when I visited,

but o what a stunning building. The curved building seems to allow for excellent pedestrian circulation and curved open spaces as well. Although I found the inside a little confusing, the outside has some great open spaces that even in February seemed popular with neighbors.

Busan Cinema Centre, Busan

Another building where it feels like the architects, in this case Coop Himmelb(l)au, got to do whatever they wanted; and are we glad. The profile from outside seemed ok, but nothing compared to the spaces outdoor spaces formed by the building, and the interior.   Although the weather was miserable, the buildings excellent outdoor viewing area, and entrances were stunning.

I also wandered through the inside, with the multiple cinemas,  library and restaurant as well as the comfortable adjacent public spaces, and found that much more readable than the DDP. Part of the fun throughout my trip was to wander through and around as much as I could. Up stairs, .I notices I have few pictures of the insides of anything…clearly it was less impressive in my eyes.  Bad Frank, architecture as object and all that.

Eunsong Foundation, Seoul

So Gagnam, of the G Style variant, is supposedly rich and fancy and famous…I went for the architecture, saw no celebrities (I saw no celebrities AT ALL). This was a small but mighty building, designed by Herzog and Du Muron;  I wanted to sell myself into slavery for them after hearing a lecture at McGill in the 90’s.

The Ensong foundation building was much more compact, than the other two projects I fawned over, but it was not less interesting. It was unfortunately closed when I visited, but even the minimal outdoor space was comfortable and inviting.