Rethinking the conflicts and continuities between tradition and modernity in early Korean modern architecture focused on two architects: Gilryong Park and Dongjin Park

Abstract

This research examines the origins of Korean modern architecture within the context of cultural encounters between the East and West in terms of modernity, and in comparison with the origins of modern Western architecture. This research examines the works of two pioneering and representative Korean modern architects: Gilryong Park (朴吉龍, 1898–1943) and Dongjin Park (朴東鎭, 1899–1981), who actively designed architecture during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945). When these two representative Korean modern architects led the movements toward modernity, adapting traditional architecture was a key factor in their philosophy of modern architecture. However, they had different approaches to inheriting tradition and interpreting modernity. Considering these two architects as case studies, this research demonstrates that early modernism in Korean architecture was entangled with and struggled between Western modernism, Japanized modernism, and traditional Korean architecture. This research provides a significant and unique case study of the cultural encounters between Korean, Japanese, and Western architecture in the early 20th century. This research enables the discovery of the identity of early Korean modern architecture through its evolution from tradition to modernism by considering the social and cultural contexts and comparing it with modern Western architecture.