LECTURE INTRODUCTION
16th SEPTEMBER 2008

EIGHT YEARS LATER: PARK/KIM

Good evening. I am Niall Kirkwood, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Design School and I would like to welcome you to tonight’s public lecture presented by Korea GSD and the Department of Landscape Architecture.
It gives me particular pleasure to welcome back to the GSD- Jungyoon Kim (Yuni as I knew her) and Yoonjin Park, my former students in landscape architecture and whom I have watched after graduation in 2000, grow and prosper first in Rotterdam in the Office of West 8 under the direction of our colleague Adriaan Gueze and now in a practice of their own making PARK KIM located in Seoul, Korea. I was sure they were always going to return home, or I hoped they would return home to reinvigorate the landscape field in Korea and to advance their work from a place that was at the same time very familiar but yet strangely foreign.
A number of you know I have spent time in Korea recently and have met with their former teachers and peers at Seoul National University. There is a growing admiration for the design work of Yuni and Yoonjin and the accomplishments of the Office of PARK KIM in such a short period of time. Their time away has made them more critical, more incisive, more productive than many of their former GSD colleagues who still remain in New York and Los Angeles
To introduce them tonight requires a little background into the antecedents, culture and specifics of the design office of Park Kim but also at the same time I wanted to quickly note some thoughts on broader issues and concerns that I have observed in Korea and that has, I believe, importance for the design fields and in particular landscape architecture in the future. Simply restated as a question ? At present IS there an identifiable body and form of contemporary localized practice we can call ‘Korean Landscape Architecture’- if so what is its concerns, expression and underlying theories and at a time of global homogenization of design practices how may it be influencing other countries and cultures.
I admit I am in the early stages of looking at these questions but I do feel there is a growing and identifiable body of design experimentation and work that is emerging in Korea or by Korean designers overseas that needs further examination. I also believe that the office of PARKKIM is part of this body of work and is deeply engaged in a critical practice, grappling with the issues of cultural identity, civic ecologies, the public-ness of space along with the concerns of memory, time and landscape space.
There has been recent expressions of interest in the phenomenon of the ‘Korean Wave’. This term or its translation ‘Hallyu’ references a surge of interest in Korean popular culture among other Asian cultures and beyond, particularly through television programs, music, movies, fashion, foods, and what is identified as teen culture. This explosion of popular culture is being exported across the globe and I have found myself for example following the recent work of film director Park Chan-wook first in Korean and now in English translations after crossing over into western cinema. But can we can attempt to place landscape architecture and site design and in particular the work of Park Kim within this cultural movement, does the ‘landscape’ stand timeless, removed from popular culture. Or is part of a growing recognition of the inter-relationship of all design production and interaction of people and their environments whether that of entertainment, productivity, shelter, the natural and artificial, the symbolic and quotidian. Some clues are offered in a recent chapter written by Yuni and Yoonjin in the book Asian Alterity edited by William S W Lim based on a workshop held in Singapore in 2007. Entitled The Experience of Nature without Parks: Gangnam Alternative Nature they focus on the particular local outlook of the cultural sphere of alternative nature and detachment of experience through 5 lenses- nature revealed, spot nature, nature memory, distancing nature and interiorized nature ? all which have allowed for the absence of matching past and present, of skipping reinterpretation and producing an urbanity that is pragmatic, non-nostalgic and grounded in a contemporary set of environmental conditions- a very Korean condition. Both the book and their essay I commend to you.
Outside on the walls at the Entrance to Gund Hall you can see two examples of the work of PARK KIM- The Chi Chi Earthquake Memorial Competition Entry from 2004 and Made in Taiwan- & Eleven Installation Project, 2007.
The practice was founded in 2004 after the successful first place in the Chi Chi Competition and Yuni and Yoonjin continue today with many projects in their office, teach at Seoul National University and are engaged on several writing projects.
To give a lecture entitled 8 Years later I would ask you to welcome back Yoonjin Park and Jungyoon Kim, collectively PARK KIM to the GSD 8 years later.
Thank you

The writing of essays is an overwhelming task for many students. Though time management is vital to succeed in school, many students aren’t able to effectively manage their time. Busy schedules mean that tons of responsibilities pile on top of each other. A good way to get cheap write my essay service aid with essay writing is to use an online essay writing service such as EduBirdie. They offer writing aid to students at every academic level, from high school to university.