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House for an Old Artist in Korea

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

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“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.

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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.

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

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

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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

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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.

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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.

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

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“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.”

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

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

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