FACADE OF MYSELF

_This is Ju-Hyun Kim’s URL, an architect who believes the biggest weakness, as well as the biggest strength, of 21st century’s architecture is “facade”—especially when micro-management of capital only allows the maximum Floor Area Ratio (FAR), and architects’ job becomes more and more confined as a mere decorator of the skin of the building.

_ Facade is not only in the architecture. Facade is everywhere; it is in our out-of-proportion resume, brand suit, and Facebook photo albums where only nice shots have been chosen. Everybody seems to believe the idea of Look-isim-where the look of performance is more important than substance of performance, the look of politicians is more important than the their philosophy on politics. However, I do not oppose this trend of focusing only on facade. Rather, in this regard, I wish to re-strengthen and take full advantage of this trend strategically. By exposing the brand-oriented superficiality, a world full of beauty of skin, and the capital’s improvisation abundant of photo-op moments, I set out to explore the urbanism of decoration. When the cities are a gigantic but monotonous, serialized and sprawling epic, I explore the randomness, shuffling and improvisation of design that will make the cities more chaotic yet wildly attractive and exciting.

_Here is the facade of myself: Registered Architect in New York, AIA, principal of UJ Architects from 2005 to 2008, partner of the real estate research group LQUEST since 2006, founding partner of “Urban Regeneration Network” since 2007 , and currently, director of H. Graduate of Harvard Design School and Seoul National University. Published in 306090 book ‘Decoration,’ and MONU ‘Beautiful Urbanism.’ Co-editor of ‘Urban Regeneration of New York, London and Seoul.’ Experiences in commercial, residential, and cultural projects in New York, Seoul and other major cities around the world.

_With omnivorous knowledge and experience in urbanism, architecture, development and research, I experiment on creative design methods everyday.

info@juhyunkim.com