Inner Space in the City: Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki and Kyu Seung Woo′s Search for Inner Space
Inner Space in the City: Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki and Kyu Seung Woo′s Search for Inner Space
Song, Hayub; Jeon, You-Chang; Yoon, Sunghoon
2015-05-01 00:00:00
Architects Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki, and Kyu Seung Woo have more in common than that they came from the high-density cities of Barcelona, Tokyo, and Seoul, respectively. They were all involved (1953~1969), Maki as a student (1953~1954), and in the Harvard Urban Design program: Sert as a teacher Woo as a student (1967~1970) and as an architectural designer in Sert's office (1971~1974). Their works and thoughts emphasize the enhancement of public space that is congenial to the existing urban structure. The problem they faced was the debacle of master planning practice, and the solution they offered was an alternative design solution to the existing gridiron pattern of cities. This paper will posit "inner public space" as an alternative to the failure of Corbusian master planning practice. The term "inner space" derives from Maki's notion of deep space in traditional Japanese towns. According to him, an inner space does not show up obviously as a space with ample light, and is less visible than a central space. Rather than the unpopular center of town, the most visited entrance or deepest place could be an inner space that fosters a historical and symbolic narrative of a town. The location of inner space in a town could be unrecognizable from a geographical map, but show up in the minds of people, or through talks with people in town. Sert, Maki, and Woo pursued inner space in different ways, according to the site situation. Well-designed inner space sustains site use, and adds historical and symbolic narratives through generating culturally appropriate activities to a natural place. The best work of each architect, 44 Brattle Street Building by Sert in Cambridge, Hillside Terrace by Maki in Tokyo, and Olympic Town by Woo in Seoul, attest to the cultural sustainability made possible by the performance of inner space. Keywords: Jose Luis Sert; Fumihiko Maki; Kyu Seung Woo; inner space; inner space envelopment; inwardness 1. Introduction Design Program. Sert as an initiator of this program This research suggests an alternative to central space promulgated the notion of the "Heart of the city", and through emphasizing the unnoticed role of inner space at the same time informed his pupils such as Maki and in the city. However, inner space is not an interior Woo of the importance of the aboriginal town and its space, but an open space that can be approached via inner space. Based on this fact, this research suggests a one or two paths. In urban design practice, the role of hypothesis that the activation of inner space in the city central space is too much laden with the success of the will bring forth operative urban spaces. area or district, and yet the importance of inner space has been marginalized and often regarded as irrational 2. Sert's "Walled-In" Place in Boston and isolated space. Because of this issue, the research Sert's notion of inner space was shaped through the of inner space has not been prevalent. And yet from observation of Barcelona's typical courtyard space, as this research of late modern period architects and well as his observation of naturally shaped villages in urban designers, the notion of inner space becomes the Mediterranean region. After coming to America, obvious. This research reveals an insightful aspect of Jose Luis Sert diagnosed that land use in America is the unknown side of the success of the Harvard Urban not efficient in forgoing the front yard as a buffer zone from the street. In fact, colonial American hometowns did not utilize the land in an efficient manner. Sert *Contact Author: Hayub Song, Ph.D. AIA, Associate Professor, introduced the compact use of land in Europe to Department of Architecture, Chung-Ang University, America, and emulated such cases of Barcelona in Heukseok-dong Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea, 156-756 Cambridge, MA. Regarding the use of space in the city, Tel: +82-2-820-5264 Fax: +82-2-812-4150 Sert focused on three territories, courtyard, pedestrian E-mail: hysong@cau.ac.kr road, and compact use of private land. He attested to ( Received April 15, 2012 ; accepted February 13, 2015 ) Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering/May 2015/240 233 these topics with his house design in Cambridge and Its intention to maximize inner space envelopment public space reconfiguration on the Harvard Campus: through walled-in patios replaced the representational facade with a non-representational one as follows: These community patios vary in size depending on the number of people they serve…. And they are As the house looks to the inside instead of looking always "walled in" by surrounding blocks of patio out, it need not have an outside expression or facade. houses. Result: people…tend to associate with others These facades can be replaced by anonymous more freely than they would in an "unframed" park looking fences. Behind them, once you enter the area. house, you can be in a different world – the world that each family can build for itself. The fronts, or This type of comparison is initiated from Sert's facades, have disappeared behind garden walls and experience of differences in Barcelona and Cambridge. fences. After observing less dense use of open spaces in America than in Barcelona, Sert concluded that just as privacy is achieved by walled-in patios in a house, so social contacts among neighborhoods occur readily in "framed" public spaces. This framing means enclosing open spaces with buildings and houses in the periphery of open spaces. To him, the typical American single house with its unenclosed front yard was regarded as loose land use, which promotes neither publicity among neighborhoods nor privacy within a family. In order to suggest an alternative to this ill-defined residential area, Sert designed walled-in open spaces with appropriate enclosures for residential projects in Latin America and America, with an apology for Fig.2. Harvard University Fig.3. Can Patios Make A compact land use. Pedestrian and Courtyard City? Jose Luis Sert & Paul Plan, Jose Luis Sert, 1957 Lester Wiener This remark emphasizes the use of spaces in the lot, while forgoing the expression of facades. The fences that demarcate the boundary of inner space in houses and streets are framing tools that secure the division of public space and private space. Street design was intended through providing an appropriate framing device for the house. This type of urban design approach was legitimized by Sert's role as the master planner of public spaces with courtyards and pedestrian passages on the Harvard University campus in 1957 (Fig.2.). Sert connected existing courtyards with pedestrian passages, on the assumption that the surrounding buildings would provide them with urban enclosure. The most important courtyard was Harvard Yard that is in the center of the campus. Around Harvard Yard, in the distance Sert's two buildings, the Science Center and the Holyoke Center operate as enclosing frames for the courtyard. Fig.1. Sert House in Cambridge, Jose Luis Sert, 1951 The Science Center works as a frame that encloses the As a testament, Sert constructed a rather unusual north side, and the Holyoke Center not only encloses walled-in patio at his new house in Cambridge in the south side, but also connects the campus to a the vicinity of Harvard University (Fig.1.). This dormitory outside the campus. While the Sert House house has two patios at the front and the back. Both did not succeed in the creation of inner space along patios maximize privacy unlike other houses in the the street, with continuous effort to implement public neighborhood, and yet block views from the street. space in the city, Sert's scheme of courtyard and The Sert House intended to operate as a beginning pedestrian connection was successful in reconfiguring place for the creation of a walled-in residential street in the Harvard University pedestrian network. the corner lot of a residential area. However, it stands The complete renewal of a couple of blocks and alone without the repetition of neighborhood houses. new building design were implemented in the Peabody 234 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song Terrace, which was incorporated into the larger 3. Maki's Inner Space Envelopment in Tokyo pedestrian route plan of Harvard University. As a Fumihiko Maki was born and raised in Tokyo family housing for students, the Peabody Terrace was and suffered the destruction of the city in the 2nd located at the end of a pedestrian route plan with 3 World War. While in Tokyo, he experienced modern courtyards. Since this family housing aimed to create architecture in the rebuilding period of Japan, and a kind of social gathering in open spaces, pedestrian yet came to know the importance of climate through passages and courtyards were operative in the shaping the reading of Fudo written by philosopher Tetsuro of community. Watsuji. Around 1959, he came to observe inner space While all the above buildings focused on the through trips to the Mediterranean area. He learned that courtyard, the positive case of inner space was seeded architecture responds to climate in order to facilitate in the 44 Brattle Street Building, which housed Sert, the gathering of people in public spaces. In doing so, Hugh and Jackson Associates in the 1970s. The central space was often exposed to the climate, while inner space was shaped according to the existing use inner space was much more enclosed by shading of the pattern and the need for an entrance to the back of natural and manmade environment. the building. Before Sert's building was designed, the Maki attended the Harvard School of Design from courtyard was used as an entrance backyard for other 1953 to 1954 when Jose Luis Sert began an academic buildings. Sert transformed the passage and backyard position as Dean of the School in 1953. Maki was into a courtyard for three buildings and a long passage one of the students in Sert's urban design studio, and that intersect the block. The character of the courtyard learned from Sert's approach to urban design issues. is semi-public since it works as an entrance yard for Maki is famous for his notion of 'collective form', two buildings, and yet is public since anyone can take a which was incorporated as one of the Metabolists's rest while passing through the passage. In other words, theories in 1960. He developed this idea through a trip this courtyard is not easily visible from the street, and to aboriginal towns in the Middle East Mediterranean works as an inner space in the block that disseminates area. After he returned to Japan, his observation of passages that interconnect the block. Japanese cities developed into an article named, "Japanese City Spaces and the Concept of Oku ( 澳 )," which addresses the hidden rule of inner space envelopment in the shaping of the Japanese city. Maki proposed the concept of oku (innermost area) as the core of a high-density space organized into multiple layers, like an onion. Maki understands oku as a key concept in Japanese city shaping, in comparison to Western city design. For example, okusei, inwardness, has been basic to space formation in Japan. Okuyuki, i.e. depth, signifies relative distance, or the sense of distance within a given space. Oku also has a number Fig.4. Open Entrance between the 44 Brattle Street Building and the Design Research Building of abstract connotations, including profundity and unfathomability, so that the word is used to describe In sum, Sert did not create hierarchical central not only physical, but also psychological depth. space for the city, but devised a network of courtyards and pedestrian passages. In doing so, he maintained 'human scale' in enclosing courtyards with buildings. The concept of inner space that he attempted to create with "walled-in" spaces was not successful in most Fig.5. Plan of a Kyoto Machiya (Townhouse), Fumihiko Maki: cases. The Sert House did not bring up the repetition of Entering from the Street (to the Left), One Passes in a Linear neighborhood houses. The courtyards of the Peabody Fashion from the Most Public to the Most Private Rooms of the Terrace did not operate in everyday activities; yet on House, which are Set Deep into the City Block special occasions like community gatherings, its scale and size works with high attendance. However, in the Maki compared Japanese deep-layered space to 44 Brattle Street Building, a suggestive inner space was the Western concept of plaza and public space. Both implemented by transforming a rather hidden backyard perform as a space for gathering or community, and yet into a courtyard that is connected to multiple pedestrian he emphasized different motives of urban formation. passages. It is a calm space that is "walled-in" by three He regards the courtyard formation of China as not buildings and yet operates as an umbilical cord that being different from that of Western cities. They give connects buildings in a block. Sert's inner space in importance to the high point and the center in urban a modern city is enclosed by different buildings and structures; a high point in a given topography is activates their participation in the creation of a hidden utilized as an emblematic space, and the center is used but working urban space. as public space. Unlike the Western tradition, Japan JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 235 has a trait of using valleys and flat land hidden between this type of town is necessary to elucidate the town's the mountains to shape a town. Many agricultural organizational logic. towns in Japan are shaped for an easy approach from the outside and along a creek near the valley. Often the shrine or a place for worshipping ancestors is located along the valley line at a rather higher location than the town, and operated as an innermost area that is hard to approach from outside of the town. This deep structure creates a form of 'delayed space' in the approach and perception of the town. While Chinese architecture influenced Japanese and Korean architecture, the topographical difference and traditional cultural value make their settlement shaping different. In particular, Japanese and Korean town Fig.6. Diagram of an Archetypal Japanese Village, with its design follows topography and weather more than the "Inner Space" Hidden Deep in the Mountain, Fumihiko Maki emphasis on trade in China. The Chinese traditional urban design Wang-chung ( 王城 ) plan follows a In contemporary Tokyo, where traditional townscape defensive system of castle and walls in a grid system of and modern urban design are mixed, it is hard to roads. In China, traditional towns around a river, where apply the traditional concept of inner space to the large and vast rice paddies are shaped, also followed a understanding of space. Instead, Maki searches for grid pattern that is similar to the Wang-chung plan. On the space interconnection that can harbor inner space this point, Maki argues that Chinese architectural use throughout interior spaces and urban spaces. Maki of walls and central space making is not different from criticizes the current situation as follows, that of Western architecture. He points out that when the pagoda was introduced into Japan, the height was "Inner space becomes more and more reduced in response to the site situation and context. compartmentalized, being relegated to one portion Maki was opposed to this type of Western space of an apartment, for instance, and thus ceases to making method that gives importance to the center and participate in the kind of collective inner space its peripheral walls, naming it 'center demarcation.' In formerly found in the city." this model of thought, space is assumed to be immense, and one's territory is to be defended against outer forces. This remark warns us of a compartmentalized urban Whether of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, or Modern situation, where space design becomes a separated task period, Western cities focus on the center of the city, and that does not consider urban obligation. In many of the boundary that demarcates the city. It is certain that Maki's descriptions of city, inner space envelopment is the postwar trends of the 50s also focus on the center of implied in an apology for spatial interconnection and the city, which was proposed by Sert as "the heart of the visual penetration through spaces. When he described city" at the CIAM 8th meeting at Hoddesson, England the renovated Museum of Modern Art in New York, he in 1951. Sert wanted to rejuvenate city centers with the even mentioned that the building is itself a city, where hustle and bustle of people, and assist their activities solitary gaze on the works of art and people is possible. through total works of art and architecture. It is obviously Maki regards space interconnection as a prerequisite a therapeutic approach that works as an alternative to in the shaping of inner space in modern cities, and by master planning practice, and thus not holistic enough to doing so, crosses the boundary between interior spaces respond to the reality of the urban situation. However, and exterior spaces. this concern for rejuvenating the urban environment has 3.1 Hillside Terrace been the major issue in urban design thereafter. As the most successful case in contemporary Tokyo, Against this model, the "inner space envelopment" Maki designed Hillside Terrace to achieve the concept assumes a finite nature, of land enveloped by site of inner space envelopment throughout buildings and conditions, with roads and topography. A town is open spaces. This building complex has been much bounded by a natural boundary and site condition, and written about by many scholars as an emblem of an is entered from a main entry point with a welcoming ongoing urban project that can motivate its own and pavilion. As one goes deeply into the town, other nearby building designs. Here, the author will make a structures of open space and houses are found, and point on how the inner space envelopment was applied the depth of the town is created. It is composed of a to this building complex. continuous flow of open and closed spaces. This type Teruyuki Monnai interpreted Hillside Terrace of traditional town is shaped naturally, with a sensitive through applying Maki's own concept of group form to organizational logic that is hard to analyze by a rational the explanation of building complex. In regard to the planning method. Wisdom and careful observation of inwardness of a city, Monnai introduced oku, which the way the natural and cultural environment sustain was explained by Maki elsewhere. 236 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song are Important Cultural Properties in Japan, and kofun ( 古墳 ), named as Monkey playing tomb (猿樂塚 ). These are remnants of the Asakura estate, and Hillside Terrace was developed in consideration of these important existing places on the site. The main house is in the deepest place in the site, and shows the profiles of roofs only from the site. The monkey playing tomb works as a highest natural point where a shrine is located. Although these places were once places of the Asakura estate, they still function similarly to their old use in Hillside Terrace. Fig.7. Asakura House in its Original Shape Throughout the development, Maki has been cautious concerning the use of the existing site and upcoming situation, much as one designs a town. The shrine is preserved, and works as a natural and symbolic landscape. The Hillside Terrace phase two design did not disrupt the approach to the kofun. The phase three design completed this place as the middle of the courtyard. The natural and symbolic mound became a deep place in the courtyard, since the mound landscape accompanied and ascended to it while the low main house needed to descend to the lowest place. Together with the dovetail shaped building masses of phases 2 and 3, the fluctuation of landscape and its historical meaning added the dimension of oku in space and time. Spatially, the layering of each plane of the buildings from the street creates multi-directional Fig.8. Kofun ( 古墳 ), Named as Monkey Playing Tomb views from one place to another. From a place, there ( 猿樂塚 ), Hillside Terrace, Fumihiko Maki exists always a near view and a distant view that complement one another to create a depth of spaces. "A major characteristic of Japanese urban space is Also, Asakura House and kofun, which are visible the way spatial layers overlap to produce a distinct and approachable from the site, show the vestige of sense of spatial depth, or Oku…Hillside Terrace time and its renewal by becoming a central space in incorporates a number of spatial layers…Many the complex. Hillside Terrace is a modern town that spatial layers are formed to produce not only oku but emulates the traditional spatial value of the Japanese also a sense of transparency…These spatial layers town. are public spaces and encourage diverse forms of activity, such as strolling, meditating and looking at works of art." Monnai interprets the layers of space as oku from street to inner area of the site. This layering of space and architectural elements had been discussed much earlier by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky as the concept of "phenomenal transparency." Criticizing a literal transparency that is guaranteed by the modern window-wall, they proposed a form of complex transparency that concatenates window-wall plane and space far beyond, much as cubist paintings do. Monnai's interpretation of oku is not much different Fig.9. Kofun ( 古墳 ), Named as Monkey Playing Tomb from Rowe and Slutzky's notion of phenomenal ( 猿樂塚 ), Hillside Terrace, Fumihiko Maki transparency, and is limited to the explanation of The inner space configuration that reveals the building wall plane and space only. history of a site, like the case of Hillside Terrace It is notable to explain the whole complex with sheds a new light on the present issue of sustainability. this concept since it emulates the time and space When the topography and activities of people are not development of a district in the city. Hillside Terrace is separable, and integrated to shape a well-operated site a new building complex that emulates the continuous situation, the buildings and their environment sustain spatial value of Japanese culture. A particular presence their configuration throughout the change of time. The in the site is Kyu Asakura House and its garden, which JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 237 inner space enveloping Hillside Terrace renews and 4.1 Urban Courtyard, Roosevelt Island Housing continues the residential culture of the site. Competition In 1975, New York State Urban Development 4. Woo's Inward Town in Seoul Corporation conducted a competition for the 2nd Kyu Seung Woo was born and raised in Seoul and phase of housing at Roosevelt Island. In 1970, Sert lived in a family where his grandmother and uncle's had previously designed two housing complexes family lived together in a pre-modern area of Seoul. on this island that emulated the spatial quality and He remembers his town with a welcoming wooden community system of Peabody Terrace. Sert's use of pavilion and a shrine at the back of the town. The Skip-Stop floor (elevator stops at every 3rd floor) was pavilion works as a gathering space, while a shrine reintroduced to create an intimate social structure of works as an inner space. This memory persists in his residents. Eastwood Residential Complex has all the practices in the United States and Korea, and works as elements Sert pursued in urban housing: 1) social mix a momentum in the creation of a warm inwardness of of young and old, singles and families, 2) courtyard the architectural environment. enclosed by building mass, 3) ground floor concourse In 1969, Kyu Seung Woo attended the Urban Design that can foster community activities, 4) composition Program at Harvard University. Jose Luis Sert finished of low and high building mass, 5) human scaled mass his position as Dean of the School in the same year; with stepped terrace roof, and 6) façade variation with however, Woo worked for Sert and Jackson Associates functional windows for house and corridor. from 1970 to 1974 at their office in the 44 Brattle Street Building. It is not certain whether he followed Sert's design approach or not, and yet many of Woo's works have common features with Sert's works. Sert's proposition of human scale is well maintained in Woo's works; and the design of variegated façade elements can be found in both. Furthermore, the project types that Sert designed, such as private residence, gallery, school building, university housing, and housing complex, are similar to Woo's types of commission. As architects from foreign countries, their commissions came from design competitions and institutions, rather than from private businesses. This fact illustrates that their works are much more pure and suggestive than the other commissions that are more subject to the Fig.10. Roosevelt Island Housing Competition, 1975 interests of the client. Kyu Seung Woo Due to these reasons, Sert's and Woo's works share common features. Among many features, this paper focuses on the shaping of urban space that has the characteristic of inward public space. Sert proposed walled-in space, and yet it is not a compartmentalized space, but a communicative space that can provide people with a momentary retreat from the hustle and bustle of traffic. As well, walled-in space connects separated buildings and passages through a common courtyard. Sert's approach was practical and anthropological, since he garnered many features from his observation of historical European settings. Sert overcomes the problem of the existing city, which Fig.11. Riverview Residential Complex, 1970 Jose Luis Sert Maki criticized as "center demarcation", through an interstitial network of courtyards and pedestrian Kyu Seung Woo's proposal was the winning scheme passages. His urban design scheme and design works of the competition. Joan Ockman commented that the have the meaning of enhancing the existing city with winning scheme followed "Sertian" solutions. In fact, suggestive design features. Woo began his practice in Sert served as the chair of the jury. Woo's winning Boston, and faced a similar situation to Sert in having to scheme is not so much different from Sert's approach, work with existing cities. However, his work in Seoul which focused on social mix and pedestrian interaction was relatively large scale, and provided him with the at ground level. The composition of low and tall masses chance to make a new urban structure, thus inputting creates human scale, with an emphasis on activities the concept of inwardness in the city, which he learned at the street level. While tall towers operate as visual from Sert and from agricultural villages in Korea. objects in the distance, low masses perform as a close 238 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song backdrop of community activities. The main concept was movement and community pedestrian path, which creates social space in the town. This concept appears to have been taken from Peabody Terrace. Courtyards are open and closed according to one's movement through open spaces, and meanwhile the depth of space creates an expectation of different events of everyday life. Both Sert's two housing complexes and the unbuilt scheme of Woo illustrate a compact use of land, building low and high masses around a courtyard, with Fig.12. Korean Traditional Town Structure variegated façade elements. In both, Sert's concept of walled-in patios for the courtyard can be applied to the In a sense, there exists a difference between Maki's multi-housing complex. focus on the innermost area of a town, and Woo's 4.2 Modern Emulation of Korean Old Town, innermost depth of a site. While Maki proposed a Olympic Town, Seoul calm and reserved space as the core of inner space Woo won the international competition of the 1988 envelopment, Woo utilized the pedestrian entry of Seoul Olympic Town with his design of a multi-housing Olympic Town as the innermost area of the town, which complex for athletes. While Woo's U.S. works have has community facilities such as retail stores and so limited sites in an existing city, the site of Olympic on. Athletes commuting by foot through Olympic Town was almost like a tabla rasa, and yet lay between Park pass by the community building. Now, after the the border of city and nature. The project was for a Olympic Games, residents use cars from the outskirts superblock to accommodate more than 5,000 housing of the town, and the community building became the units, on a site that faces a mountain to the east and deepest area of the site, still functioning as a retail Olympic Park to the north, which has a couple of area for the town. It is much more like Jane Jacobs' creeks. Matching the shape of the site, the phenomenal proposal of a corner store in the town. In order to make feature of the town is the pan-like radial layout of a focus on the community building, Woo designed the buildings. Building masses are concentrically located residential block with stepped masses that become toward its center as a community facility. This J-shaped lower toward the center. At the outskirt, its height is community building faces Olympic Park to the north, 24 floors, and at the center, it is 6 floors only. Together and is visible from any point of the site. In an interview with its radial plan, the height variation creates a focus with the Dong-A Daily newspaper, Woo mentioned that: on the center and vice versa expansion of view toward the outside of the site. The elevation of residential "The main characteristic of the radial layout of Olympic Town is to represent the traditional Korean town structure that has an orientation toward innermost depth of spaces. This spatial orientation is culminated and provided as a place for the gathering of all athletes in town during the Olympic Games." Woo mentioned two subjects, the innermost depth of spaces and traditional Korean town structure. This Fig.14. Olympic Town mention is quite similar to Maki's proposal of oku, Elevation which he learned from traditional Japanese town structure. Much as Maki described the structure of the Japanese town, the traditional Korean town has a similar structure of inner space envelopment. In the deep place of a town, a shrine or worshiping place is located, and at the entrance of a town, a pavilion for gathering and Fig.13. Olymic Town, 1988 welcoming is usually located. From the entrance, several Kyu Seung Woo paths to houses in town branch out, and shape a deep space structure at the farthest end of the road, which is analogous to Woo's radial plan of the town. He wrote, "Traditional Korean towns and cities have been created along rivers and creeks with mountains at the back of the settlement. Following the skirt of the mountain slope, the town is shaped as radial plan with Fig.15. Community Building its core as a pavilion near the entrance of the town." Fig.16. Plan of Olympic Town of Olympic Town JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 239 version of the traditional Korean town in a modern buildings has variation much like Peabody Terrace. city. Maki and Woo work against rationalized ideology, Windows that match the unit plan create a variation and instead create alternatives to it through proposing of elevation in the overall building. "inwardness" and "inner space envelopment", 5. Conclusion which could be effective for the creation of viable Inner space is generated from the aboriginal village communities. and East Asian town settlement, and can be applied A conclusion and extrapolation that could be drawn to contemporary cities in the different manners that from this research would be the creation of both public Sert, Maki, and Woo implemented in existing cities. and intimate urban spaces that can generate "saturated Central space is mostly located at the center of a town phenomena" for the public. Saturated phenomena are and district and is enclosed by buildings, and operates not a haphazard happening, but a veritable activity that as a public space for political activity, gathering, and occurs in a community. It could be either symbolic or taking a stroll, especially in Western towns and new historical. While "central space" sustains undecided, cities worldwide. On the contrary, inner space does not haphazard and yet probable events, "inner space" does need to be at the center; it could be in a deep place of not often allow unexpected events, and yet sustains the a town or on the periphery of a town. It is a symbolic saturation of historical and symbolic events that can place, or solitary space in the city. It has a narrative, continue in a community. While "central space" often whether historical or contemporary. Most importantly, entails so-called agoraphobia that makes one's mind to design an inner space in a modern city involves the lost in the midst of the public, "inner space" does not interpretation of the traditional value of settlement in a entail phobia, and yet awaits the upbringing of shared given culture. moments in a contemporary city. Sert proposed "walled-in" space, which is a renewed Mediterranean patio space, for the urban culture of Notes G.A.T.E.P.A.C (Grup d'Arquitectes I Tecnics Catalans per Cambridge, in order to enliven the pedestrian culture. al Progres de l'Arquitectura Contemporania) was formed in Through configuring a network of pedestrian passages Barcelona in 1931, together with Sert's colleagues. and courtyards, Sert emulated the spectrum of privacy 2 Jose Luis Sert, "Can Patios Make Cities?" Architectural Forum. and publicity in a modern city. Sert's walled-in spaces 1953 Aug., v. 99, p.127. perform differently according to the sizes and locations Jose Luis Sert, "The Rebirth of the Patio," José Luis Sert, Architecture, City Planning, Urban Design. ed. Knud Bastlund, of the courtyards. Maki and Woo were educated under Zurich: Les Editions d'Architecture, 1967. p.135. the guidance of Sert, and yet their practices in their See author's paper, Hayub Song, "Jose Luis Sert's Naturalization home countries of Japan and Korea respectively, are of Architecture in the City" Journal of Asian Architecture and unique in their design of inner space. Maki proposed Engineering, Vol. 9 (2010) No. 2, pp.275-282. "inner space envelopment", which assumes an onion- Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams, MIT Press, 2008. p.26. Oku-dokoro (inner place), oku-guchi (inner-entrance), oku-sha like space structure of a town that prefers deep and (inner shrine), oku-yama (mountain recesses), oku-zashiki (inner symbolic space envelopment with buildings. Woo room), oku-gi (secret or hidden principles), oku-den (secret proposed "inwardness" in a city, which emulated the mysteries of art) Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams, MIT Press, traditional Korean town structure where the entry pavilion performed as a place for welcoming and Teruyuki Monnai, "Search for an Architectural Language of Group Form" Fumihiko Maki, Maki Fumihiko, D avid Stewart, Mark gathering. Mulligan, Kenneth Frampton, Phaidon Press, 2009. p.183. Consequently, Sert's position remained Western in Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, manner, and yet provided quite an operative center Fordham University Press, 2002. [De surcroit: études sur les space as the heart of the city. In his practice, it was phénomenes saturés, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, most effective in the small house patio, which is 2001)]. similar to the courtyard of a multi-family housing building in his hometown of Barcelona. Though designed to be a public space, a rather big courtyard did not always remain that active. A constant update of the use program that encloses the courtyard was quite influential in the success and failure of the courtyard. Maki has been respectful to the site situation, both topographically and historically. He has continued to design the symbolic value of a town in the modern city, and thus his spaces and buildings sustain each other. His concept of "inner space envelopment" overcomes the limit of Western central courtyard space. Woo made a new history in the design of the multi-housing complex through a radial plan and the creation of "inwardness" toward community space. It is a renewed 240 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song
http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.pngJournal of Asian Architecture and Building EngineeringTaylor & Francishttp://www.deepdyve.com/lp/taylor-francis/inner-space-in-the-city-jose-luis-sert-fumihiko-maki-and-kyu-seung-woo-TPXdsXhm3m
Inner Space in the City: Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki and Kyu Seung Woo′s Search for Inner Space
Inner Space in the City: Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki and Kyu Seung Woo′s Search for Inner Space
Abstract
Architects Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki, and Kyu Seung Woo have more in common than that they came from the high-density cities of Barcelona, Tokyo, and Seoul, respectively. They were all involved in the Harvard Urban Design program: Sert as a teacher (1953~1969), Maki as a student (1953~1954), and Woo as a student (1967~1970) and as an architectural designer in Sert′s office (1971~1974). Their works and thoughts emphasize the enhancement of public space that is congenial to the...
Architects Jose Luis Sert, Fumihiko Maki, and Kyu Seung Woo have more in common than that they came from the high-density cities of Barcelona, Tokyo, and Seoul, respectively. They were all involved (1953~1969), Maki as a student (1953~1954), and in the Harvard Urban Design program: Sert as a teacher Woo as a student (1967~1970) and as an architectural designer in Sert's office (1971~1974). Their works and thoughts emphasize the enhancement of public space that is congenial to the existing urban structure. The problem they faced was the debacle of master planning practice, and the solution they offered was an alternative design solution to the existing gridiron pattern of cities. This paper will posit "inner public space" as an alternative to the failure of Corbusian master planning practice. The term "inner space" derives from Maki's notion of deep space in traditional Japanese towns. According to him, an inner space does not show up obviously as a space with ample light, and is less visible than a central space. Rather than the unpopular center of town, the most visited entrance or deepest place could be an inner space that fosters a historical and symbolic narrative of a town. The location of inner space in a town could be unrecognizable from a geographical map, but show up in the minds of people, or through talks with people in town. Sert, Maki, and Woo pursued inner space in different ways, according to the site situation. Well-designed inner space sustains site use, and adds historical and symbolic narratives through generating culturally appropriate activities to a natural place. The best work of each architect, 44 Brattle Street Building by Sert in Cambridge, Hillside Terrace by Maki in Tokyo, and Olympic Town by Woo in Seoul, attest to the cultural sustainability made possible by the performance of inner space. Keywords: Jose Luis Sert; Fumihiko Maki; Kyu Seung Woo; inner space; inner space envelopment; inwardness 1. Introduction Design Program. Sert as an initiator of this program This research suggests an alternative to central space promulgated the notion of the "Heart of the city", and through emphasizing the unnoticed role of inner space at the same time informed his pupils such as Maki and in the city. However, inner space is not an interior Woo of the importance of the aboriginal town and its space, but an open space that can be approached via inner space. Based on this fact, this research suggests a one or two paths. In urban design practice, the role of hypothesis that the activation of inner space in the city central space is too much laden with the success of the will bring forth operative urban spaces. area or district, and yet the importance of inner space has been marginalized and often regarded as irrational 2. Sert's "Walled-In" Place in Boston and isolated space. Because of this issue, the research Sert's notion of inner space was shaped through the of inner space has not been prevalent. And yet from observation of Barcelona's typical courtyard space, as this research of late modern period architects and well as his observation of naturally shaped villages in urban designers, the notion of inner space becomes the Mediterranean region. After coming to America, obvious. This research reveals an insightful aspect of Jose Luis Sert diagnosed that land use in America is the unknown side of the success of the Harvard Urban not efficient in forgoing the front yard as a buffer zone from the street. In fact, colonial American hometowns did not utilize the land in an efficient manner. Sert *Contact Author: Hayub Song, Ph.D. AIA, Associate Professor, introduced the compact use of land in Europe to Department of Architecture, Chung-Ang University, America, and emulated such cases of Barcelona in Heukseok-dong Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Korea, 156-756 Cambridge, MA. Regarding the use of space in the city, Tel: +82-2-820-5264 Fax: +82-2-812-4150 Sert focused on three territories, courtyard, pedestrian E-mail: hysong@cau.ac.kr road, and compact use of private land. He attested to ( Received April 15, 2012 ; accepted February 13, 2015 ) Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering/May 2015/240 233 these topics with his house design in Cambridge and Its intention to maximize inner space envelopment public space reconfiguration on the Harvard Campus: through walled-in patios replaced the representational facade with a non-representational one as follows: These community patios vary in size depending on the number of people they serve…. And they are As the house looks to the inside instead of looking always "walled in" by surrounding blocks of patio out, it need not have an outside expression or facade. houses. Result: people…tend to associate with others These facades can be replaced by anonymous more freely than they would in an "unframed" park looking fences. Behind them, once you enter the area. house, you can be in a different world – the world that each family can build for itself. The fronts, or This type of comparison is initiated from Sert's facades, have disappeared behind garden walls and experience of differences in Barcelona and Cambridge. fences. After observing less dense use of open spaces in America than in Barcelona, Sert concluded that just as privacy is achieved by walled-in patios in a house, so social contacts among neighborhoods occur readily in "framed" public spaces. This framing means enclosing open spaces with buildings and houses in the periphery of open spaces. To him, the typical American single house with its unenclosed front yard was regarded as loose land use, which promotes neither publicity among neighborhoods nor privacy within a family. In order to suggest an alternative to this ill-defined residential area, Sert designed walled-in open spaces with appropriate enclosures for residential projects in Latin America and America, with an apology for Fig.2. Harvard University Fig.3. Can Patios Make A compact land use. Pedestrian and Courtyard City? Jose Luis Sert & Paul Plan, Jose Luis Sert, 1957 Lester Wiener This remark emphasizes the use of spaces in the lot, while forgoing the expression of facades. The fences that demarcate the boundary of inner space in houses and streets are framing tools that secure the division of public space and private space. Street design was intended through providing an appropriate framing device for the house. This type of urban design approach was legitimized by Sert's role as the master planner of public spaces with courtyards and pedestrian passages on the Harvard University campus in 1957 (Fig.2.). Sert connected existing courtyards with pedestrian passages, on the assumption that the surrounding buildings would provide them with urban enclosure. The most important courtyard was Harvard Yard that is in the center of the campus. Around Harvard Yard, in the distance Sert's two buildings, the Science Center and the Holyoke Center operate as enclosing frames for the courtyard. Fig.1. Sert House in Cambridge, Jose Luis Sert, 1951 The Science Center works as a frame that encloses the As a testament, Sert constructed a rather unusual north side, and the Holyoke Center not only encloses walled-in patio at his new house in Cambridge in the south side, but also connects the campus to a the vicinity of Harvard University (Fig.1.). This dormitory outside the campus. While the Sert House house has two patios at the front and the back. Both did not succeed in the creation of inner space along patios maximize privacy unlike other houses in the the street, with continuous effort to implement public neighborhood, and yet block views from the street. space in the city, Sert's scheme of courtyard and The Sert House intended to operate as a beginning pedestrian connection was successful in reconfiguring place for the creation of a walled-in residential street in the Harvard University pedestrian network. the corner lot of a residential area. However, it stands The complete renewal of a couple of blocks and alone without the repetition of neighborhood houses. new building design were implemented in the Peabody 234 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song Terrace, which was incorporated into the larger 3. Maki's Inner Space Envelopment in Tokyo pedestrian route plan of Harvard University. As a Fumihiko Maki was born and raised in Tokyo family housing for students, the Peabody Terrace was and suffered the destruction of the city in the 2nd located at the end of a pedestrian route plan with 3 World War. While in Tokyo, he experienced modern courtyards. Since this family housing aimed to create architecture in the rebuilding period of Japan, and a kind of social gathering in open spaces, pedestrian yet came to know the importance of climate through passages and courtyards were operative in the shaping the reading of Fudo written by philosopher Tetsuro of community. Watsuji. Around 1959, he came to observe inner space While all the above buildings focused on the through trips to the Mediterranean area. He learned that courtyard, the positive case of inner space was seeded architecture responds to climate in order to facilitate in the 44 Brattle Street Building, which housed Sert, the gathering of people in public spaces. In doing so, Hugh and Jackson Associates in the 1970s. The central space was often exposed to the climate, while inner space was shaped according to the existing use inner space was much more enclosed by shading of the pattern and the need for an entrance to the back of natural and manmade environment. the building. Before Sert's building was designed, the Maki attended the Harvard School of Design from courtyard was used as an entrance backyard for other 1953 to 1954 when Jose Luis Sert began an academic buildings. Sert transformed the passage and backyard position as Dean of the School in 1953. Maki was into a courtyard for three buildings and a long passage one of the students in Sert's urban design studio, and that intersect the block. The character of the courtyard learned from Sert's approach to urban design issues. is semi-public since it works as an entrance yard for Maki is famous for his notion of 'collective form', two buildings, and yet is public since anyone can take a which was incorporated as one of the Metabolists's rest while passing through the passage. In other words, theories in 1960. He developed this idea through a trip this courtyard is not easily visible from the street, and to aboriginal towns in the Middle East Mediterranean works as an inner space in the block that disseminates area. After he returned to Japan, his observation of passages that interconnect the block. Japanese cities developed into an article named, "Japanese City Spaces and the Concept of Oku ( 澳 )," which addresses the hidden rule of inner space envelopment in the shaping of the Japanese city. Maki proposed the concept of oku (innermost area) as the core of a high-density space organized into multiple layers, like an onion. Maki understands oku as a key concept in Japanese city shaping, in comparison to Western city design. For example, okusei, inwardness, has been basic to space formation in Japan. Okuyuki, i.e. depth, signifies relative distance, or the sense of distance within a given space. Oku also has a number Fig.4. Open Entrance between the 44 Brattle Street Building and the Design Research Building of abstract connotations, including profundity and unfathomability, so that the word is used to describe In sum, Sert did not create hierarchical central not only physical, but also psychological depth. space for the city, but devised a network of courtyards and pedestrian passages. In doing so, he maintained 'human scale' in enclosing courtyards with buildings. The concept of inner space that he attempted to create with "walled-in" spaces was not successful in most Fig.5. Plan of a Kyoto Machiya (Townhouse), Fumihiko Maki: cases. The Sert House did not bring up the repetition of Entering from the Street (to the Left), One Passes in a Linear neighborhood houses. The courtyards of the Peabody Fashion from the Most Public to the Most Private Rooms of the Terrace did not operate in everyday activities; yet on House, which are Set Deep into the City Block special occasions like community gatherings, its scale and size works with high attendance. However, in the Maki compared Japanese deep-layered space to 44 Brattle Street Building, a suggestive inner space was the Western concept of plaza and public space. Both implemented by transforming a rather hidden backyard perform as a space for gathering or community, and yet into a courtyard that is connected to multiple pedestrian he emphasized different motives of urban formation. passages. It is a calm space that is "walled-in" by three He regards the courtyard formation of China as not buildings and yet operates as an umbilical cord that being different from that of Western cities. They give connects buildings in a block. Sert's inner space in importance to the high point and the center in urban a modern city is enclosed by different buildings and structures; a high point in a given topography is activates their participation in the creation of a hidden utilized as an emblematic space, and the center is used but working urban space. as public space. Unlike the Western tradition, Japan JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 235 has a trait of using valleys and flat land hidden between this type of town is necessary to elucidate the town's the mountains to shape a town. Many agricultural organizational logic. towns in Japan are shaped for an easy approach from the outside and along a creek near the valley. Often the shrine or a place for worshipping ancestors is located along the valley line at a rather higher location than the town, and operated as an innermost area that is hard to approach from outside of the town. This deep structure creates a form of 'delayed space' in the approach and perception of the town. While Chinese architecture influenced Japanese and Korean architecture, the topographical difference and traditional cultural value make their settlement shaping different. In particular, Japanese and Korean town Fig.6. Diagram of an Archetypal Japanese Village, with its design follows topography and weather more than the "Inner Space" Hidden Deep in the Mountain, Fumihiko Maki emphasis on trade in China. The Chinese traditional urban design Wang-chung ( 王城 ) plan follows a In contemporary Tokyo, where traditional townscape defensive system of castle and walls in a grid system of and modern urban design are mixed, it is hard to roads. In China, traditional towns around a river, where apply the traditional concept of inner space to the large and vast rice paddies are shaped, also followed a understanding of space. Instead, Maki searches for grid pattern that is similar to the Wang-chung plan. On the space interconnection that can harbor inner space this point, Maki argues that Chinese architectural use throughout interior spaces and urban spaces. Maki of walls and central space making is not different from criticizes the current situation as follows, that of Western architecture. He points out that when the pagoda was introduced into Japan, the height was "Inner space becomes more and more reduced in response to the site situation and context. compartmentalized, being relegated to one portion Maki was opposed to this type of Western space of an apartment, for instance, and thus ceases to making method that gives importance to the center and participate in the kind of collective inner space its peripheral walls, naming it 'center demarcation.' In formerly found in the city." this model of thought, space is assumed to be immense, and one's territory is to be defended against outer forces. This remark warns us of a compartmentalized urban Whether of the Mediaeval, Renaissance, or Modern situation, where space design becomes a separated task period, Western cities focus on the center of the city, and that does not consider urban obligation. In many of the boundary that demarcates the city. It is certain that Maki's descriptions of city, inner space envelopment is the postwar trends of the 50s also focus on the center of implied in an apology for spatial interconnection and the city, which was proposed by Sert as "the heart of the visual penetration through spaces. When he described city" at the CIAM 8th meeting at Hoddesson, England the renovated Museum of Modern Art in New York, he in 1951. Sert wanted to rejuvenate city centers with the even mentioned that the building is itself a city, where hustle and bustle of people, and assist their activities solitary gaze on the works of art and people is possible. through total works of art and architecture. It is obviously Maki regards space interconnection as a prerequisite a therapeutic approach that works as an alternative to in the shaping of inner space in modern cities, and by master planning practice, and thus not holistic enough to doing so, crosses the boundary between interior spaces respond to the reality of the urban situation. However, and exterior spaces. this concern for rejuvenating the urban environment has 3.1 Hillside Terrace been the major issue in urban design thereafter. As the most successful case in contemporary Tokyo, Against this model, the "inner space envelopment" Maki designed Hillside Terrace to achieve the concept assumes a finite nature, of land enveloped by site of inner space envelopment throughout buildings and conditions, with roads and topography. A town is open spaces. This building complex has been much bounded by a natural boundary and site condition, and written about by many scholars as an emblem of an is entered from a main entry point with a welcoming ongoing urban project that can motivate its own and pavilion. As one goes deeply into the town, other nearby building designs. Here, the author will make a structures of open space and houses are found, and point on how the inner space envelopment was applied the depth of the town is created. It is composed of a to this building complex. continuous flow of open and closed spaces. This type Teruyuki Monnai interpreted Hillside Terrace of traditional town is shaped naturally, with a sensitive through applying Maki's own concept of group form to organizational logic that is hard to analyze by a rational the explanation of building complex. In regard to the planning method. Wisdom and careful observation of inwardness of a city, Monnai introduced oku, which the way the natural and cultural environment sustain was explained by Maki elsewhere. 236 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song are Important Cultural Properties in Japan, and kofun ( 古墳 ), named as Monkey playing tomb (猿樂塚 ). These are remnants of the Asakura estate, and Hillside Terrace was developed in consideration of these important existing places on the site. The main house is in the deepest place in the site, and shows the profiles of roofs only from the site. The monkey playing tomb works as a highest natural point where a shrine is located. Although these places were once places of the Asakura estate, they still function similarly to their old use in Hillside Terrace. Fig.7. Asakura House in its Original Shape Throughout the development, Maki has been cautious concerning the use of the existing site and upcoming situation, much as one designs a town. The shrine is preserved, and works as a natural and symbolic landscape. The Hillside Terrace phase two design did not disrupt the approach to the kofun. The phase three design completed this place as the middle of the courtyard. The natural and symbolic mound became a deep place in the courtyard, since the mound landscape accompanied and ascended to it while the low main house needed to descend to the lowest place. Together with the dovetail shaped building masses of phases 2 and 3, the fluctuation of landscape and its historical meaning added the dimension of oku in space and time. Spatially, the layering of each plane of the buildings from the street creates multi-directional Fig.8. Kofun ( 古墳 ), Named as Monkey Playing Tomb views from one place to another. From a place, there ( 猿樂塚 ), Hillside Terrace, Fumihiko Maki exists always a near view and a distant view that complement one another to create a depth of spaces. "A major characteristic of Japanese urban space is Also, Asakura House and kofun, which are visible the way spatial layers overlap to produce a distinct and approachable from the site, show the vestige of sense of spatial depth, or Oku…Hillside Terrace time and its renewal by becoming a central space in incorporates a number of spatial layers…Many the complex. Hillside Terrace is a modern town that spatial layers are formed to produce not only oku but emulates the traditional spatial value of the Japanese also a sense of transparency…These spatial layers town. are public spaces and encourage diverse forms of activity, such as strolling, meditating and looking at works of art." Monnai interprets the layers of space as oku from street to inner area of the site. This layering of space and architectural elements had been discussed much earlier by Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky as the concept of "phenomenal transparency." Criticizing a literal transparency that is guaranteed by the modern window-wall, they proposed a form of complex transparency that concatenates window-wall plane and space far beyond, much as cubist paintings do. Monnai's interpretation of oku is not much different Fig.9. Kofun ( 古墳 ), Named as Monkey Playing Tomb from Rowe and Slutzky's notion of phenomenal ( 猿樂塚 ), Hillside Terrace, Fumihiko Maki transparency, and is limited to the explanation of The inner space configuration that reveals the building wall plane and space only. history of a site, like the case of Hillside Terrace It is notable to explain the whole complex with sheds a new light on the present issue of sustainability. this concept since it emulates the time and space When the topography and activities of people are not development of a district in the city. Hillside Terrace is separable, and integrated to shape a well-operated site a new building complex that emulates the continuous situation, the buildings and their environment sustain spatial value of Japanese culture. A particular presence their configuration throughout the change of time. The in the site is Kyu Asakura House and its garden, which JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 237 inner space enveloping Hillside Terrace renews and 4.1 Urban Courtyard, Roosevelt Island Housing continues the residential culture of the site. Competition In 1975, New York State Urban Development 4. Woo's Inward Town in Seoul Corporation conducted a competition for the 2nd Kyu Seung Woo was born and raised in Seoul and phase of housing at Roosevelt Island. In 1970, Sert lived in a family where his grandmother and uncle's had previously designed two housing complexes family lived together in a pre-modern area of Seoul. on this island that emulated the spatial quality and He remembers his town with a welcoming wooden community system of Peabody Terrace. Sert's use of pavilion and a shrine at the back of the town. The Skip-Stop floor (elevator stops at every 3rd floor) was pavilion works as a gathering space, while a shrine reintroduced to create an intimate social structure of works as an inner space. This memory persists in his residents. Eastwood Residential Complex has all the practices in the United States and Korea, and works as elements Sert pursued in urban housing: 1) social mix a momentum in the creation of a warm inwardness of of young and old, singles and families, 2) courtyard the architectural environment. enclosed by building mass, 3) ground floor concourse In 1969, Kyu Seung Woo attended the Urban Design that can foster community activities, 4) composition Program at Harvard University. Jose Luis Sert finished of low and high building mass, 5) human scaled mass his position as Dean of the School in the same year; with stepped terrace roof, and 6) façade variation with however, Woo worked for Sert and Jackson Associates functional windows for house and corridor. from 1970 to 1974 at their office in the 44 Brattle Street Building. It is not certain whether he followed Sert's design approach or not, and yet many of Woo's works have common features with Sert's works. Sert's proposition of human scale is well maintained in Woo's works; and the design of variegated façade elements can be found in both. Furthermore, the project types that Sert designed, such as private residence, gallery, school building, university housing, and housing complex, are similar to Woo's types of commission. As architects from foreign countries, their commissions came from design competitions and institutions, rather than from private businesses. This fact illustrates that their works are much more pure and suggestive than the other commissions that are more subject to the Fig.10. Roosevelt Island Housing Competition, 1975 interests of the client. Kyu Seung Woo Due to these reasons, Sert's and Woo's works share common features. Among many features, this paper focuses on the shaping of urban space that has the characteristic of inward public space. Sert proposed walled-in space, and yet it is not a compartmentalized space, but a communicative space that can provide people with a momentary retreat from the hustle and bustle of traffic. As well, walled-in space connects separated buildings and passages through a common courtyard. Sert's approach was practical and anthropological, since he garnered many features from his observation of historical European settings. Sert overcomes the problem of the existing city, which Fig.11. Riverview Residential Complex, 1970 Jose Luis Sert Maki criticized as "center demarcation", through an interstitial network of courtyards and pedestrian Kyu Seung Woo's proposal was the winning scheme passages. His urban design scheme and design works of the competition. Joan Ockman commented that the have the meaning of enhancing the existing city with winning scheme followed "Sertian" solutions. In fact, suggestive design features. Woo began his practice in Sert served as the chair of the jury. Woo's winning Boston, and faced a similar situation to Sert in having to scheme is not so much different from Sert's approach, work with existing cities. However, his work in Seoul which focused on social mix and pedestrian interaction was relatively large scale, and provided him with the at ground level. The composition of low and tall masses chance to make a new urban structure, thus inputting creates human scale, with an emphasis on activities the concept of inwardness in the city, which he learned at the street level. While tall towers operate as visual from Sert and from agricultural villages in Korea. objects in the distance, low masses perform as a close 238 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song backdrop of community activities. The main concept was movement and community pedestrian path, which creates social space in the town. This concept appears to have been taken from Peabody Terrace. Courtyards are open and closed according to one's movement through open spaces, and meanwhile the depth of space creates an expectation of different events of everyday life. Both Sert's two housing complexes and the unbuilt scheme of Woo illustrate a compact use of land, building low and high masses around a courtyard, with Fig.12. Korean Traditional Town Structure variegated façade elements. In both, Sert's concept of walled-in patios for the courtyard can be applied to the In a sense, there exists a difference between Maki's multi-housing complex. focus on the innermost area of a town, and Woo's 4.2 Modern Emulation of Korean Old Town, innermost depth of a site. While Maki proposed a Olympic Town, Seoul calm and reserved space as the core of inner space Woo won the international competition of the 1988 envelopment, Woo utilized the pedestrian entry of Seoul Olympic Town with his design of a multi-housing Olympic Town as the innermost area of the town, which complex for athletes. While Woo's U.S. works have has community facilities such as retail stores and so limited sites in an existing city, the site of Olympic on. Athletes commuting by foot through Olympic Town was almost like a tabla rasa, and yet lay between Park pass by the community building. Now, after the the border of city and nature. The project was for a Olympic Games, residents use cars from the outskirts superblock to accommodate more than 5,000 housing of the town, and the community building became the units, on a site that faces a mountain to the east and deepest area of the site, still functioning as a retail Olympic Park to the north, which has a couple of area for the town. It is much more like Jane Jacobs' creeks. Matching the shape of the site, the phenomenal proposal of a corner store in the town. In order to make feature of the town is the pan-like radial layout of a focus on the community building, Woo designed the buildings. Building masses are concentrically located residential block with stepped masses that become toward its center as a community facility. This J-shaped lower toward the center. At the outskirt, its height is community building faces Olympic Park to the north, 24 floors, and at the center, it is 6 floors only. Together and is visible from any point of the site. In an interview with its radial plan, the height variation creates a focus with the Dong-A Daily newspaper, Woo mentioned that: on the center and vice versa expansion of view toward the outside of the site. The elevation of residential "The main characteristic of the radial layout of Olympic Town is to represent the traditional Korean town structure that has an orientation toward innermost depth of spaces. This spatial orientation is culminated and provided as a place for the gathering of all athletes in town during the Olympic Games." Woo mentioned two subjects, the innermost depth of spaces and traditional Korean town structure. This Fig.14. Olympic Town mention is quite similar to Maki's proposal of oku, Elevation which he learned from traditional Japanese town structure. Much as Maki described the structure of the Japanese town, the traditional Korean town has a similar structure of inner space envelopment. In the deep place of a town, a shrine or worshiping place is located, and at the entrance of a town, a pavilion for gathering and Fig.13. Olymic Town, 1988 welcoming is usually located. From the entrance, several Kyu Seung Woo paths to houses in town branch out, and shape a deep space structure at the farthest end of the road, which is analogous to Woo's radial plan of the town. He wrote, "Traditional Korean towns and cities have been created along rivers and creeks with mountains at the back of the settlement. Following the skirt of the mountain slope, the town is shaped as radial plan with Fig.15. Community Building its core as a pavilion near the entrance of the town." Fig.16. Plan of Olympic Town of Olympic Town JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song 239 version of the traditional Korean town in a modern buildings has variation much like Peabody Terrace. city. Maki and Woo work against rationalized ideology, Windows that match the unit plan create a variation and instead create alternatives to it through proposing of elevation in the overall building. "inwardness" and "inner space envelopment", 5. Conclusion which could be effective for the creation of viable Inner space is generated from the aboriginal village communities. and East Asian town settlement, and can be applied A conclusion and extrapolation that could be drawn to contemporary cities in the different manners that from this research would be the creation of both public Sert, Maki, and Woo implemented in existing cities. and intimate urban spaces that can generate "saturated Central space is mostly located at the center of a town phenomena" for the public. Saturated phenomena are and district and is enclosed by buildings, and operates not a haphazard happening, but a veritable activity that as a public space for political activity, gathering, and occurs in a community. It could be either symbolic or taking a stroll, especially in Western towns and new historical. While "central space" sustains undecided, cities worldwide. On the contrary, inner space does not haphazard and yet probable events, "inner space" does need to be at the center; it could be in a deep place of not often allow unexpected events, and yet sustains the a town or on the periphery of a town. It is a symbolic saturation of historical and symbolic events that can place, or solitary space in the city. It has a narrative, continue in a community. While "central space" often whether historical or contemporary. Most importantly, entails so-called agoraphobia that makes one's mind to design an inner space in a modern city involves the lost in the midst of the public, "inner space" does not interpretation of the traditional value of settlement in a entail phobia, and yet awaits the upbringing of shared given culture. moments in a contemporary city. Sert proposed "walled-in" space, which is a renewed Mediterranean patio space, for the urban culture of Notes G.A.T.E.P.A.C (Grup d'Arquitectes I Tecnics Catalans per Cambridge, in order to enliven the pedestrian culture. al Progres de l'Arquitectura Contemporania) was formed in Through configuring a network of pedestrian passages Barcelona in 1931, together with Sert's colleagues. and courtyards, Sert emulated the spectrum of privacy 2 Jose Luis Sert, "Can Patios Make Cities?" Architectural Forum. and publicity in a modern city. Sert's walled-in spaces 1953 Aug., v. 99, p.127. perform differently according to the sizes and locations Jose Luis Sert, "The Rebirth of the Patio," José Luis Sert, Architecture, City Planning, Urban Design. ed. Knud Bastlund, of the courtyards. Maki and Woo were educated under Zurich: Les Editions d'Architecture, 1967. p.135. the guidance of Sert, and yet their practices in their See author's paper, Hayub Song, "Jose Luis Sert's Naturalization home countries of Japan and Korea respectively, are of Architecture in the City" Journal of Asian Architecture and unique in their design of inner space. Maki proposed Engineering, Vol. 9 (2010) No. 2, pp.275-282. "inner space envelopment", which assumes an onion- Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams, MIT Press, 2008. p.26. Oku-dokoro (inner place), oku-guchi (inner-entrance), oku-sha like space structure of a town that prefers deep and (inner shrine), oku-yama (mountain recesses), oku-zashiki (inner symbolic space envelopment with buildings. Woo room), oku-gi (secret or hidden principles), oku-den (secret proposed "inwardness" in a city, which emulated the mysteries of art) Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams, MIT Press, traditional Korean town structure where the entry pavilion performed as a place for welcoming and Teruyuki Monnai, "Search for an Architectural Language of Group Form" Fumihiko Maki, Maki Fumihiko, D avid Stewart, Mark gathering. Mulligan, Kenneth Frampton, Phaidon Press, 2009. p.183. Consequently, Sert's position remained Western in Jean-Luc Marion, In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, manner, and yet provided quite an operative center Fordham University Press, 2002. [De surcroit: études sur les space as the heart of the city. In his practice, it was phénomenes saturés, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, most effective in the small house patio, which is 2001)]. similar to the courtyard of a multi-family housing building in his hometown of Barcelona. Though designed to be a public space, a rather big courtyard did not always remain that active. A constant update of the use program that encloses the courtyard was quite influential in the success and failure of the courtyard. Maki has been respectful to the site situation, both topographically and historically. He has continued to design the symbolic value of a town in the modern city, and thus his spaces and buildings sustain each other. His concept of "inner space envelopment" overcomes the limit of Western central courtyard space. Woo made a new history in the design of the multi-housing complex through a radial plan and the creation of "inwardness" toward community space. It is a renewed 240 JAABE vol.14 no.2 May 2015 Hayub Song
Journal
Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering
– Taylor & Francis
Published: May 1, 2015
Keywords: Jose Luis Sert; Fumihiko Maki; Kyu Seung Woo; inner space; inner space envelopment; inwardness
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