Seoul As Envisioned By A Scholar of Urban Design
Special Exhibition of Relics Donated By Prof. Kahng Byong-Kee
Period: Oct. 29, 2021 – Mar. 6, 2022.
Venue: Special Exhibition Hall B, Seoul Museum of History
“A city of coexistence between the old and new, beautiful and spiteful, order and freedom, rigidness and softness, rich and poor, high and low, preciousness and vulgarity, broadness and narrowness, brightness and darkness, good and bad, fast and slow, people and automobiles, men and women, and all other things. Wouldn’t it be the city we desire?
Kahng Byong-Kee, “Design of Seoul, An Ideal City,” Culture of Life and City, 2009
The Seoul Museum of History arranges a special exhibition with donated relics every year. This year, the museum will arrange an exhibition with carefully selected relics donated by late Dr. Kahng Byong-Kee, to present a systematic focus on the history of urban development in Seoul. Dr. Kahng was recognized as the person who laid the foundation of Korea’s urban planning and urban design. Born in 1932 in Jeju Island, he studied in Japan since his high school days and continued his studies at the University of Tokyo. There he learned under professor Kenzō Tange, one of the leaders in the scene of Japan’s modern architecture. After receiving his doctorate in 1970, Dr. Kahng was invited to Hanyang University as a professor of the Urban Planning and Engineering Division. After returning home, he served as the president of the Korea Planning Association, and the founding president of the Urban Design Institute of Korea, as a first-generation urban engineer. Also, he committed himself to social activism by practicing his belief in urban construction from the ground up. Serving as the director of the Civic Association for Walkable City, Dr. Kahng encouraged citizen-led urban planning practices through various civic activities, such as creating a pedestrian plaza in front of Seoul City Hall and the enactment of the basic ordinance for ensuring pedestrian rights and pedestrian environment improvements in Seoul.