Seoul Urban Architecture-Rising from the Crushing Bowl: SoA Open to all

November 10, 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Mānoa Campus, School of Architecture

Sung Hong Kim is Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Seoul. His career as an educator, critic, and curator bridges architectural theory and practice with urban research and cultural analysis. The lecture introduces the forthcoming book Seoul Urban Architecture: Rising from the Crushing Bowl (Park Books, Spring 2026), a powerful and original study of Seoul’s urban and architectural evolution. Part memoir, part cultural history, and part urban analysis, the book traces how South Korea’s capital—once a walled city shaped by Confucian ideals—has become a sprawling, vertical metropolis marked by rapid modernization, deep structural contradictions, and a fierce, creative resilience. Sung Hong Kim’s reflections on displacement, constraint, and ingenuity speak to a broader global condition faced by architects and urban designers alike: how to find meaning and agency within environments shaped by forces beyond their control.


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School of Architecture, Mānoa Campus

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