| Title |
Post-authoritarian Design of Public Offices |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.5659/JAIK.2022.38.7.127 |
| Abstract |
In line with the changes that occurred within Korean society, it has become apparent that municipal governments advocated a
post-authoritarian direction for public architecture. However, unlike the general consensus of what constitutes authoritarian design, opinions
widely varied on what post-authoritarian design actually is. Therefore, to lay the foundation for understanding Korea's post-authoritarian
process in architecture, the design of six metropolitan cities were analyzed focusing on the front plaza that prominently emerged in
metropolitan city hall architecture since 1991. Starting in the 2000s, the front plaza of metropolitan city halls began to be used as an
independent design element that was not inferior to city halls. When viewed as an empty space in the front, all metropolitan cities except
Daegu City Hall commonly advocated for a design that emphasized the roof. However, in metropolitan city halls built after 1991, their
facades were divided into three parts, with the largest middle part emphasizing transparency and simplicity. After 2000, metropolitan cities
pursued left and right-side asymmetry, but tried to balance these sides by using curves. When applying the formula H/ θ, representing a
quantitative proportional relationship between the plaza and the facade of a city hall, only the metropolitan city hall converged to a factor of
2.57 after the emergence of local autonomy; the variance was only 0.007, making it virtually the same between city halls. Therefore, the
design of metropolitan cities could be classified before and after the implementation of local autonomy in 1991 and a clear trend was made
evident when the plaza was focused on. It is with hope that this discovery will serve as a cornerstone for understanding post-authoritarian
design in public architecture. |