South Korean building : Architecture Information
Korean Architecture by Dominique Perrault : Seoul University Campus
Ewha Womans University Campus Center Project, Seoul, Korea
2004-08
Dominique Perrault
Information from Dominique Perrault June 2008:
Photographs © André Morin / DPA / ADAGP
Program 'The Campus Valley'
The establishment of a campus center for about 22,000 students.
- academic program: classrooms and library
- sport-term project space, student activity support
- administration
- commercial area, sports and parking area.
Above and below the land previously occupied by Ewha Square and the athletic fi eld the new 'Campus Valley' provides both Ewhaians and prospective female leaders with much-needed space for continuing education and student services. The campus centre is designed to offer a new sense of direction for higher education in the 21st century. It establishes organic relations between the center and surrounding areas of campus as well as between above ground and underground spaces; and will serve to redefi ne access to the campus from the main road Jung Mun.
Ewha Womans University
Inauguration 29 April 2008
Flying is the best way to reach the shores of Seoul Ewha University’s new building (founded in 1886, Ewha welcomes 22,000 female students and is ranked as one of the best universities in the world), thought and realised by Dominique Perrault, as a result of an international architecture competition organised in 2003, and inaugurated on April 29th 2008.
A landscape then, more than an architecture work, located in the midst of Seoul’s university area. A campus valley where nature, sport grounds, event locations and educational buildings mix, intermingle and follow one another. A long asphalted strip, delineated at one end by a race track, and, completely surrounded by nature. Arranged nature where pear trees and topiary reign. Black asphalt, red race track, green nature and fi nally the white brightness of a valley appears. A valley, which is bravely drawn in the ground, slides down along a gentle slope. At the other end, the slope becomes a huge stairway which can be used as an open air amphitheatre if necessary.
At the very heart of the valley, a dreamlike immersion takes place. Opposed to the outdoor world, a subtle and serene universe appears suddenly. Classrooms and libraries, amphitheatres and auditoriums, shops and movement… Everything follows up with a constant natural light.
Perrault is prone to buried, excavated, nestled places (the French National Library in Paris, the Velodrome and Olympic swimming pool in Berlin, both built, or the studies for the Kansai Library in Japan and the Cultural Centre in Santiago de Compostela, Spain…) Perrault has the desire, physically speaking, to appropriate the territory, to mingle the constructed material with the ground, the desire to exploit to its paroxysm the idea that “concept and matter have to grapple one with another”.
At Ewha University, Perrault puts one more time in action: words (idea, concept, abstraction, geometry, strategy, tension, fusion, freedom, simplicity, evidence…), principles (physics, mechanics, dimension…) and commitments (urban concerns, creation of a location and not only of a building, refusal of formalism, and disappearance of architecture…) which best qualify his architecture.
With the forthcoming inauguration of Seoul Ewha Womans University, Dominique Perrault attests his intense international activity (Habitat Hotel in Barcelona, achievement in May 2008, NH Hotels in Milan, November 2008, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, December 2008, the Tennis Stadium in Madrid, May 2009, Donau-City Towers in Vienna, 2010, Theatre Mariinsky II in Saint-Petersburg, 2010…)
Ewha Womans University info from Dominique Perrault Architecture 260608
EWHA WOMANS UNIVERSITY CAMPUS CENTER
Seoul, Korea
international competition, winning project
February 2004
Inauguration on 29 Apr 2008
Client Ewha Campus Center Project T/F, 328 Jin-Seon-Mi Hall, Ewha Womans University, 11-1 Daehyundong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-750, Korea.
Contact Prof.Miseon Kang / Prof. Yoonhie Lee, tel.: +82 (0)2 3277-3472
Email :
archma@ewha.ac.kr This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Architect: Dominique Perrault Architecture, Paris
Partner: Baum architects, Seoul, Korea
Engineers: Perrault Projets, Paris (architectural engineering); VP&Green Ingénierie, Paris (structural engineers); HL-PP Consult, Munich (Building services), Jean-Paul Lamoureux (acoustic); Rache-Willms, Aachen (façades)
Consultants: Jeon and Lee Partners, Séoul (structural engineer), HIMEC, Séoul (mechanical engineer), CG E&C, Séoul (civil engineer), CnK Associates, Séoul (Landscape)
Location: 11-1 Daehyundong, Seodaemun_gu, Seoul 120-750, Korea.
Site surface: 19,000 m²
Built surface: 70,000 m²
Built volume: 350,000 m³
Landscaping: 31,000 m²
Start of conceptual design: 2004
Construction start: 2005
General contracter Samsung Corporation
