Architectural
and cultural guide : Pyongyang. V.1, Photographs and descriptions / [edited by
Philipp Meuser]
DOM, Berlin
: 2012
127 p. :il., fot.
ISBN 9783869221878
Materias:
Biblioteca Sbc Aprendizaje | Referencia A-(036)72(519) ARC/I
Architectural
and cultural guide : Pyongyang. V.2, Backgrounds and comments/ edited by
Philipp Meuser
DOM, Berlin
: 2012
239 p. :
il., fot.
ISBN 9783869221878
Materias:
Biblioteca Sbc Aprendizaje | Referencia A-(036)72(519)
ARC/II
The "Architectural and Cultural Guide Pyongyang" offers unprecedented insights into the capital of what is probably the most isolated country in the world, ruled in the third generation by a “first family” stubbornly upholding its own brand of stone-age communism.
• 100 buildings and monuments
• Cabinet of architectural curiosities
• Brief history of North Korean architecture
• Theory and practice of urban planning in North Korea
• Arirang mass gymnastics events
• Propaganda posters
Links
The first volume is a photographic gallery of Pyongyang buildings
divided into major architectural categories--urban planning, residential
buildings, cultural venues, education and sport, hotels/department
stores, transport infrastructure, and monuments. Buildings' exteriors
are shown, with occasional photos of parts of interiors. Overall, the
treatment is the gross architectural forms and styles--as limited as
these are as constrained by the North Korean Communist ideology--not
details of interior design, materials, individual artists, or features
notable for artistic or other reasons. What is notable overall despite
the broad-ranging perspective with the large number of buildings shown
is the repetitiveness of architectural concept. Though categorized into
major categories in terms of the buildings' kind or function, the North
Korean architecture is basically either functional (e. g., apartment
buildings, government buildings) or monumental (e. g., statues,
commemorative or symbolic structures).
The concept
"juche" discussed briefly in the second volume accounts for the
architecture. The term meaning simply "self-reliant" has broader,
significant historical and political connotations. In a 1991 work on
architecture parts of which are excerpted, the North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il (d. 2011) wrote, "Juche architecture regards the masses'
aspirations and demands as the sole criterion for the evaluation of
beauty." Although this is standard Communist ideology, for North Korean
leaders since the end of World War II, "juche" was a principle intended
to develop a distinctive national identity apart from Soviet Russia
which had been Korea's ally in the War against Japan occupying the
Korean peninsula.
The photographs of the many buildings
in Volume I have brief captions or annotations containing facts about
construction or features (e. g., capacity) or historical notes. Volume 2
contains illustrated essays on varied facets of the Pyongyang
architecture. In this volume, one finds photographs of buildings under
construction, photos of North Koreans in other social settings, pictures
of leaders and government officials, and posters on the sides of urban
buildings or monuments meant to work in conjunction with them in
representing the strength of social unity, the relationship between
leaders and the population, and other principles of the nation's
ideology. One of the chapters of the second volume is "Learning from
Pyongyang - On the Legibility of Spatial Production." The topics of
urban architecture and Communist ideology are implicit or explicit in
most of this volume essays.
Use of the two-volume set as a
travel guide is noted by the editor. He also notes that all visitors to
North Korea are monitored continually by the authorities, not that this
interferes with viewing the architecture. But even if one does not plan
travel to North Korea, the set works as a unique informative
illustrated study of the architecture of this infamous, closed society.
On this subject, it is encyclopedic.
Documentation
[Gallery] The unseen face of Pyongyang German architect publishes English, German and now Korean guide to North Korea's mysterious capital By Frances Cha | CNN Go, 2012-05-22
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