D'Casa International Digital Magazine 31

Pierced architecture 0914, between

By Isabel Rosas Martín del Campo

between void and shape

WhenI went to university I read the mandatory book Theory of Architecture by José Villagrán. One of the chapters that most caught my attention was Character in Architecture. He talked about how the language of architecture must be as clear as it is precise so that the message is correct when it is read. Thus, seeing and knowing that it is a house, or a school, or a church and not, on the contrary, what is seen turns out to be a hospital and not a school. I remembered it because when I saw the powerful image of what it revealed below, little by little, I had to ask myself over and over again: “what would it be or, what would it be for”. In the end I was able to conclude that his enigma is just provocatively intense, at the same time that he invites you to know it. There is an effect of introjection or induction in his proposal. I am referring to a digital photograph that showed me a monumental white rectangular prism dissected with a disruptive perforation, caused by five (visible) interposed prisms in the shape of small houses with triangular roofs; all arranged one on top of the other as if they wanted to open the way between them to each gain notorious visibility. Meanwhile, at the same time, a latent but invisible body is given birth that, like water, takes the perforated shape to account for the enormous force of the rising void. So, when you look at that powerful vacuum, you detect that under those houses there is such a fantastic force that they lift them, as if it was a deliberate levitation (which it is). I am referring to an architectural work that appears attractive to your daily walk through the streets of high society.

Such a piece of architecture emulates a perforated white box, it boasts four superimposed metal numbers in its upper right corner. It is about 0914 on Gangnam-gum street in the city of Seoul in South Korea. This number practically represents the name of this particular building of contemporary architecture conceived by the firm of architects TRU Architects + Eho. Whose formal proposal invites dialogue to profuse concepts that clearly reveal its dialogical intention, not only between the elements that shape the built object itself; there is also his enigmatic way of inevitably drawing the attention of those of us who, for some reason, come across this white box. The emptiness of the ethereal sunken form does not subdue the white foreground that is known to be perforated, but neither do the prismatic extrusions of brick. Its powerful balance dialogues silently. Meanwhile, the mystical interior is evidence of the complex mystery that shelters this space. You don’t know so easily what a banquet foot hides, so entering is inevitable; Until then, the interconnection between a captivating supra atmosphere (upper floors) and an infra atmosphere (lower floors) is revealed in whose cosmogony you discover a different world of experiencing and enjoying the human encounter in an original interspace full of contrasts. The same ones that make way for the enjoyment of restaurants, art galleries, cafes, artists’ and designers’ workshops. I think the stealthy idea is to trap you between the void, the shape, the time and the numerical limits imposed by the Plaza 0914 flagship Store.