ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates four major trends in contemporary Korean architecture, contextualizing them as a reaction to changes in Korean society and Group 4.3’s hegemony. In the 1990s, during the dissolution of Korea’s older social, political, and economic systems, a group of young architects organized a faction called Group 4.3. Their guiding aim was to promote the architect as a creative individual. When the country allowed its citizens to travel abroad freely, Group 4.3 members visited modern buildings in Western countries. They embraced them as a source of inspiration, rejecting the imitation of traditional forms. In the process, Group 4.3 converted Western modern architectural motifs into something ascetic and hermetic. Group 4.3 members became among the most influential figures in Korean architecture. The great changes in Korean society in the 1990s and the rise and dominance of the members of Group 4.3 are among the essential conditions of contemporary Korean architecture. Pursuits of modern tradition, contemporary Western practice, fun and play, and the quotidian can all be read as responses to Group 4.3’s overly abstract, austere, and conceptual tendencies.
