• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design
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• v.35 no.10
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• pp.91-102
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• 2019

Gwangbok is the best example of the dramatic changes after the 1970s in residential and urban planning as political power shifted from Kim Il-sung to his son. Kim Jong-il. Therefore, despite the limited available data on North Korea, we first attempted to accurately describe the design process used to develop Gwangbok. This study investigated the following aspects of North Korean urban planning by examining Gwangbok. First, we clarified Kim Jong-il's aesthetics, which had a key role in the Gwangbok design. We particularly analysed the ideas expressed in his literary writings. Second, we identified the major ideas of the North Korean architects and urban planners who implemented Kim Jong-il's interventions. Last, we reviewed the Soviet Union's influence on the discourse about North Korean residential and urban planning during the post-Khrushchev era. This analysis improves our understanding of the trends during the 1970s and 1980s in socialist residential construction, which was a relatively flexible and open prefabrication approach.