ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the work of a modern South Korean author Inho Choe’s Another Man’s Room (1971); this compelling short story is highly architectural in the sense that it narrates the atmospheric quality of an apartment in Seoul originated by the protagonist’s direct interactions with the space. By challenging the conventional understanding of Seoul’s apartments, this unprecedented work provides us with different readings of, and an alternative entry to, the city’s most dominant housing typology.
Up to now architects and urban designers have criticized Seoul’s apartments for their anonymous and inhuman qualities. They have also argued that the design of Seoul’s apartments has been carried out in a way to only maximize economic and utilitarian value, which has resulted in the monotonous Seoulians’ situations of life. By the same token, apartments have never entered the realm of architectural practice, simply remained products of the construction industry.
My contention is that Seoul’s apartment is ever-changing living entity; it is a site of transformation, not in the sense of its form and style, but in its realization of the stories it can generate. In this sense, the narrative of Another Man’s Room teaches us how the protagonist’s embodied perception of his surroundings and the articles of daily life they hold change day by day, and the way he understands is worthy of attentions of architectural designer and educators.
