Critics Rave Over College Architecture

University buildings, which have looked all the same, are now changing.

Each university has recruited famous architects to design their buildings and invested tens of billions of won in campus design and buildings in order to increase their competitiveness.

Seoul National University’s art gallery, which opened on June 7, was designed by Rem Koolhaas, who designed the national art gallery in Rotterdam. The total construction cost, which Samsung paid and donated to Seoul National University, was about 15 billion won.

The building has garnered interest from the beginning with its unique design. It is shaped like a cube with a slanted bottom, and the center spaces on the third floor and the third floor of the basement have been made into wide open spaces.

Seoul National University plans to utilize this space as a venue for various cultural events, such as art exhibitions, movies, and performances.

Ewha Women’s University’s Ewha-Samsung Campus Center (ESCC), to be completed in 2007, is designed by famed architect Dominique Ferro, who has also designed the national library in Paris. The building’s total floor area is about 20,000 pyeong (about 66000 m2), and has six basement floors. Sloping walkways into the building reach the basement floors, where there will be classrooms and convention halls. The total construction costs amount to approximately 100 billion won, a significant amount of which Samsung donated.

Professor Kang Mi-seon of the architecture department at Ewha Women’s University said, “We wanted to fulfill our students’ needs for learning space and to efficiently utilize limited campus grounds. We have planted trees and limited entrances of cars to create an environmentally friendly and clean campus.”

The College of Fine Arts and Architecture building at Pai Chai University in Daejeon, which was completed last March, is in the shape of a grand piano. The building was entered into the Venice Biennale design competition and earned rave reviews.

The building, designed by Cho Byung-soo, was selected by U.S.-based magazine Architectural Record as one of the top 11 architectural buildings that will lead international architecture. It also won an award in the 2005 Korea Architecture Culture Awards in 2005.

Pai Chai University’s International Center, which has open spaces, an outer wall of glass, and large concrete supports, was selected as one of “2005 Top Seven Beautiful Buildings” and won a special category prize in the 2005 Architecture Culture Awards.

Daejeon University’s Hyehwa Culture Center, designed by Seung Hyo-sang, and Daejeon University’s dormitory, designed by Min Hyun-sik, were exhibited at an exhibition hosted by Pennsylvania University in 2003.

Also, Yonsei University’s new Severance Hospital building, which was given a merit award by the American Institute of Architects in the hospital category, and Korea University’s Centennial Hall, which has a classical outer appearance and modern interior design, are known to have blended the outer beauty of the building and state of the art facilities well. Both buildings were completed last May.

Former professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at Kyunghee University Yoo Geol, who designed Pai Chai University’s International Center, said, “As students take a more active interest in the campus environment, universities are investing more into the facilities. In the future, our task is to fuse university facilities and the city environment organically, as they are in foreign countries.”