Minsuk Cho, the Korean architect behind this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, on how his design is similar to Korean food

As the first Korean architect to design the pavilion, what was your balancing act?
I felt like I became part of the James Bond franchise. How do I add new narratives to an incredible collective memory of pavilions by great architects? I wanted to challenge the traditional way of using the Serpentine Gallery as a backdrop and placing an object-like pavilion on the lawn. In the West, a pavilion is a folly, a Utopian concept as something complete. In Korea, we sit at a jeong-ja, a simple wooden structure, to observe views and contemplate.

My pavilion consists of small islands with different purposes integrated through a void in the middle, a madang, an open courtyard located at the centre of traditional Korean houses. A tall dome would have wowed people. However, our madang is lower—casting shadows and allowing people to feel most comfortable. In a madang, there is a right amount of space to be by yourself, and people tend to meet each other without being forced. I felt that’s what I was supposed to do with this pavilion in the park.

What about the title of your pavilion? 
Hans Ulbrich gave me a book, The Archipelago Conversations, a collection of conversations between him and Édouard Glissant, which talks about ‘creolisation’, a process where two elements don’t just merge but collide to create a third form. It’s not hybridization, where the results of inoculation are predictable. I actually only read the book after I finished my concept but was amused by how it was exactly what I envisioned my pavilion to be. So the title of the pavilion is a sort of “thank you” note to the authors, and pavilions do look like archipelagos seen from high above. 

It’s also in sync with what I have long pursued through my practice—unity and multiplicity. For instance, when I competed for the New Seoul City Hall design in 2007, my idea was a very heterogeneous reaction to the urban conditions where there are many different kinds of buildings but there is something in the centre that unifies them.

How did you approach sustainability? 
The timber and stone used in the construction of the pavilion are all reusable materials. We used Douglas fir, similar to the common Korean pine tree, from Surrey, near London, instead of oak, which would have travelled from far away and would have cost much more. It has a rustic flavour and is thick because it is a softwood. It’s a comfortable wood to lean on. I am the first to use natural timber instead of engineered wood and surprisingly, also the first to use stone, which seems like such an obvious material. As a usable pavilion, rather than a finished object, we respected the 60cm slope of the terrain, and the stones on the path were very lightly fixed so that they could be used again later.

Mixing contrast is a strong feature of Korean culture. What was your approach? 
I built this pavilion to reflect the context that was given here in this spot. My idea was to show that conceptual architecture, which is considered inventive and shiny, and contextual architecture, which is about discovery can coexist together. The pavilion is both site-specific and site-less, it allows each island to be recombined in 120 different ways. Rather than simply being placed as a single sculpture, it is a structure that can be flexibly altered according to the environment. The islands can be moved according to the view you want to create. 

What’s the characteristic of contemporary Korean architecture?
What I find fascinating about Korea is that I still feel like a foreigner after coming back to Korea 21 years ago. Since the Asian financial crisis in 1998, Korea has gone through so many different directions from a single path of urbanisation and economic growth. You have non-urban areas that are just thriving, cities that are dying, and cities that are just being built. There are juxtapositions of different eras, and architects of our times reflect these notions. Their projects with a strong understanding of these situations and their complexities are much more compelling.

NOW READ: 

Refik Anadol on using AI to create a Dior perfume and how digital artists still face bias

For their Venice Biennale exhibition, Indian artists Madhvi and Manu Parekh are transforming paintings and sculptures into textile tapestries

Father of Hong Kong design Henry Steiner on how his legacy and that of the city are inextricably linked