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House for an Old Artist in Korea

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Studio Gaon muses on the House of San Jo that he designed for an old artist to spend time with his family.

“The concept for this house came from the idea of ‘Sunday’. I used to meet the client and we would work together on Sundays, and so I wanted a house with a relaxed atmosphere like music for a Sunday afternoon.

The client had bought this land when he was young and used to come here whenever he had time and look at the range to the west.

He is a renowned artist in his 70s, famous for his modernist style paintings that deal with the concept of ‘family.’

He had overcome childhood hardships and become a successful artist and thinks the bond between family members and friends is the most important.

“To meet the client in Gwangju, 300km away from Seoul, I used to take an express bus every Sunday morning and arrive around lunchtime, listening to traditional Korean music for the three hour journey.”

“The melody mingled with the land I saw, and the building that should be built on it came to me like in a dream, and I woke me up with the slow and relaxing finale by the time I got to Seoul.”

“I thought that the house should resemble San-jo, whose simplicity contains three-dimensional diversity, showing continuous spatial flow as one goes deeper and deeper into the space.”

The main purposes for this house are for painting, and for looking.

Except for painting, which is active, the reason for the house is passive, seeing.

The act of ‘seeing’ is the main program of the house.

Thus, the mass of the house has a simple plan, comprising of a studio-cum-living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen that bridges the two spaces and connects to the outside deck.

“This project was nothing but sitting a small house on a hillside where rocks are scattered.”

“That may be why the rocks standing in the middle of Mudeung-san, a land that makes people happy just by looking at it, look like grown-up children.”

“Mudeung-san is a strangely comfortable mountain that blows gentle breath into one’s pain.”

To the west were 8 peaks of a mountain range that appeared to be walking in a line, which the old artist liked so much.

“The house is standing just like them, anchored on the hard ground, like a rock that has always been there.”