• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.84-92
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• 2017

Just as the front gate is located at the meeting point between the house and the street, the Subject and the Other face each other the same way. This study examines the relationship between House(subject) and Stree (other) at the boundary of the Front Gate-Face. Pursuing the aspects of the changing Front Gate-Face accordingly to the attitude of the Subject facing the Other, this study tries to analyze the possibilities and significance of the hospitality Front Gate-Face with the ethical point of view of Levinas. As architectural instance, results of examining the Front Gate-Face of traditional houses in Korea, China and Japan are as follows. Front Gate-Face of China is characterized by self-centered introversion to interact with the external world (the other). Front Gate-Face of Japan is characterized by a humble submission to the group. Front Gate-Face of Korea shows however more flexible relationship orientations in terms of hospitality, compared to Japan or China. When looking through hospitality factors, accordingly to the above mentioned Korean hospitality characteristics, the possibilities seem not be exclusively bordered inside the conceptual category perimeter suggested by Levinas' concept of hospitality. It is almost impossible for the nowadays ever-strong privacy culture to not allow room for the architectural structure of an absolute hospitality toward others. However, this impossibility not being absolute, still yields a space for a significant possibility to explore.