Photo by Ran Kim

Books and Broadband

South Koreas Paju Bookcity
Shannon Mattern
School of Media Studies wordsinspace.net

4th Estate, This Is Where We Live on Vimeo

Photo by Ran Kim

Via Architecture Research Unit

Photo by the author

Via The Economist; April 2012

Via Forbes

Backstories: Buildings and Books

Traditional Korean House near Asia Public Culture Information Center; Photo by Ran Kim

Seoul; via FlickrHiveMind

Via Chang-Hee Christine Bae, Koreas Greenbelts: Impacts and Options for Change Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 7:3 (1998): 481.

Sampoong Department Store Collapse, June 29, 1995; via Skyscraper City

Thirty-six years of Japanese colonial rule, followed by a chaotic liberation period, the Korean War fought between kin, and an indiscriminate influx of Western culture upon a Korean society made stagnant by authoritarian rule since the founding of the state until the 1980s in the economic order of the world's soaring industrialization: all these contributed to bringing intense psychological confusion and disorder to the people's sense of values. We have arrived at a stage today where life in urban to rural areas is extremely distorted.
Yi Ki-ung, About Book City PajuBookCity.

Photo by Ran Kim

Writing the Landscape Script

Yi Ki-Ungs Story of a Dutiful Cow, a fable about loyalty

Asia Publishing Culture Information Center; Photo by Ran Kim

Booxen Book Distribution Center; via Seung H-sang, Paju Bookcity Culturescape

Pallets of Paper @ Paju; Photo by the author

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Model of Phase 1 Development; Photo by Ran Kim

Paul Klee, A Leaf from the Book of Cities, 1928

Via Min Hyun Sik

Reading the Landscape Script

Asia Publishing Culture Information Center; Photo by Ran Kim

Asia Publishing Culture Information Center; Photo by Ran Kim

Via Architecture Research Unit

Via Architecture Research Unit

Via Urbarama

Via Archidialog; Photo by the author

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by the author

Photo by the author

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Forms of collaboration envisioned in Phase 2 development

Phase 2 Plan

Zones, And Other Stories Of Twenty-first Century Urban Cultural Development

MEDIA CITY
Salford, UK

Dubai

Seoul

an odd assemblage of 19th-century Owenite utopian legacies and their contemporary traces in Soviet total planning cities, garden cities, company towns, gated communities, and even aspects of new urbanism.
Jonathan Bach, Modernity and the Urban Imagination in Economic Zones Theory, Culture & Society 28:5 (2011): 109.

Via Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority

Via The Design Air

Via ArchDaily

Via Energy Korea

Via The Atlantic

Via extrastatecraft

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by the author

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by the author

How One Company Uses Its Ground-Floor, Street-Front Space; Photo by Ran Kim

Chapters Two & Three: Bookcitys Next Phases of Development

Via Korea Times

Via Idealog

Via seoul.go.kr

Via Kohn Pedersen Fox

Integrating multiple functions; Phase 2 Plan Book

Model Showing Field Architecture of Phase 2; Photo by Ran Kim

Bookcity as seen from Mt. Simhak, with Han River and neighboring New Towns in the background; Photo by Ran Kim

Photo by the author

Public Farm One, WORK AC, PS1, Summer 2008

Bookcitys Yield

If we consider the fact that it clearly lacks the intellectual and social interaction so basic to publishing culture, Paju Bookcity cannot yet be called a success. It is clearly not an active city. Paju Bookcity, in its retreat to the outskirts of the city proper, may itself be perceived as a failure of the Korean metropolis. It may be deemed a defeat in the battle against the rising tide of mass electronic media and the forces of the real estate market.
Hyungmin Pai, The Unfamiliar Boundaries of Paju Bookcity In Seung H-sang, Ed., Paju Bookcity Culturescape, Trans. Ken I. Kim & Hyungmin Pai (Seoul: Kimoondang Publishing, 2010): 451.

Via Wikipedia

Sculpture in front of Moveable Type Workshop, Paju Bookcity Photo by Ran Kim

Photos by Ran Kim

Photo by Ran Kim

Thank you.