| Title |
North Korean Architect Lee Hyeong: An Elite Architect's Partnership with Autocratic Rule, 1953?2000 |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.5659/JAIK.2020.36.7.69 |
| Keywords |
North Korea; Pyongyang; Lee Hyeong; Kim Il-Sung; Kim Jung-Il; Socialist Realism |
| Abstract |
Lee Hyeong served two North Korean dictators as a high-ranking state architect, working for over four decades since the end of the Korean
War. By examining Lee’s architectural projects and writings, this study analyzes the relationship between an architect and his dictatorial
clients. Using his technical skills, Lee faithfully assisted his leaders?Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jung-Il?by designing their monumental
architecture and testifying their architectural genius, and as a result, Lee remained the top architect in North Korea for an exceptionally long
period. In this process, Lee did not develop his own unique architectural style; rather, he acted as an architectural expert to realize the
various forms of architecture that his leaders desired to build. At the onset of his career, Lee went to the Soviet Union and studied
architecture. After his return, he built a great number of Stalinist classical buildings in war-torn Pyongyang. During the 1950s, as Kim
Il-Sung consolidated his absolute power, Lee helped build functional buildings that were in line with national policies or, sometimes,
buildings that promoted national pride. In the late 1970s, Kim Jong-Il emerged as the center of national power, and in the process, Lee
participated in Kim Jong-Il’s key construction projects such as the Changgwang Street redevelopment. Toward the end of his career, Lee
served the regime by testifying that Kim Jong-Il's construction projects in Pyongyang succeeded Kim Il-Sung's postwar accomplishments. The
understanding of Lee Hyeong’s varying roles as a state architect in a dictatorship will cast new light on the symbiotic relationship that North
Korean elite architects had with their autocratic leaders. |