• Journal of architectural history
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.65-80
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to investigate into the meaning of the New Brutalism sensed in the late church buildings of the Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975). St Mark's (1956-64) and St Peter's (1962-66) churches, his grand finale designs, have a unique architectural vocabulary of rough brickwork. The brick treatment is the basis on which Reyner Banham (1966) discussed him concerning the New Brutalism, and the point that this research focuses on. This paper explores the brutalist character of the buildings from two aspects - interpretational level of individual buildings and historical level of a broader view. First, the character of two churches could be interpreted with the phrase of 'play between brutality and sacredness'. The rough surface of brick and mortar in the buildings symbolises brutality and the vault of their chapels' ceiling sacredness. And the two characteristics meet and play on the rough vault surface. Second, in the historical point of view, this paper argues that the buildings made a giant leap for Swedish modern architecture, which had been at a deadlock owing to the compromising attitude of the New Empiricism since 1940s. And the Swedish New Empiricism (or the New Humanism), spread to Britain as "Welfare State architecture" after World War II, brought about reaction of the young British architects such as the Smithsons and became the background that made the new brutalist mood. However, considering that the term of the New Brutalism was first used in Sweden by Hans Asplund, Lewerentz's brutalist late churches - which seemingly had nothing to do with the British nor the Corbusian lineage - are also meaningful in that they confirmed the tendency in its homeland. In conclusion, this paper argues that St Mark's and St Peter's churches with the brutalist characteristics should be regarded as crucial buildings not only in Lewerentz's personal career but also in Swedish and international architectural history.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.135-154
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• 2012

The goal of this paper is to analyze the Freedom Center Apacle in Seoul designed by Kin Soo Geun who was a leading architect in Korean Modern architecture. Freedom Center was built in 1963, that was the largest monumental building to support military regime during cold war period in Korea. This paper deals with historical background of construction of Freedom Center and its characteristics compared to similar monumental buildings, especially Corbusier's Chandigar and Kenzo Tange's Hiroshima Peace Center. The Monumentality in Freedom Center came from the reference to these two buildings and its site plan. This paper tried to show how similar the layout of buildings between the Freedom Center and Peace Center. The origin of the sublime aura in Tange's linear layout of Peace Center is from Japanese Famous Shrine(Jinku). Kim translated it to serve the ideological purpose to protect from socialist regime in the name of freedom. Its over-scaled roof and weak contents showed Freedom center was a kind of theaterical setting belong to formalist building. But in spite of its symbolic and representational gesture its also had a architectonic physical quality to make it a monument. The change and duration in time testified the autonomous power of architecture in Freedom Center. Freedom Center was also important for using the exposed concrete and its superior finish. It was influenced not from western way of Benton Brut which was usually called New Brutalism but Japanese way of treating expose concrete. In spite of its limits Freedom center achieved new trend and sensibility in Korean Modern Architecture.