Episode 5. The God of Presentation
T/N: Yoo-wuk will be Yoo-uk
“Next up, Section 7. Please get ready for your design-pool presentation.”
At the mention that Section 7 would present next, several directors quietly gauged the mood and began to leave their seats. The meaning was obvious: they expected nothing worth watching.
Director Yoo-uk even gave the director beside him a subtle look that said, If you’re busy, you can head upstairs first.
He was doing whatever he could to reduce the number of witnesses.
Just then Team Leader Mo Seung-jin walked in.
Yoo-uk hurried to the computer set at the side of the hall and opened the company messenger. Geonshin’s PPT file had still not arrived.
“Hey, Team Mo, why are you so late? I nearly peed myself, you know.”
Yoo-uk spoke with a face that screamed ‘Saved at last.’
“It’s still rendering.”
“What? Why fuss so much over one little bridge? The president isn’t here and the busy guys have already slipped out. Let’s finish quickly. If they rip into us like last time, only your team will hurt.”
“This time will be different. Probably…”
“Huh? Different how?”
Right then, the directors who had fled re-entered in small groups, looking flustered.
“Hey, why’d you come back? Your section’s busy. Just go up and—!”
Someone was walking slowly in from afar.
White hair, a neatly trimmed beard, a flamboyant suit, and even a scarf around his neck.
Only one person in the firm could stroll around dressed like that:
Lee Sang-man, President of Yeongjo Architects.
He entered the hall smiling. Though short, he radiated a powerful aura, and both advisers and division presidents at the front gave polite bows.
“My morning schedule was canceled, so I found time to watch the design pool. Ho-ho.”
Inwardly, Director Yoo-uk pulled a sour expression invisible to others.
Ugh. What’s our section supposed to do now?
The division presidents all looked tense.
For all their stature, every one of them had once been a team leader groveling under Lee when he himself had been a section chief.
As Yeongjo’s third president, one of Korea’s star architects, Lee Sang-man was famous as a modern-day Midas who landed every project he touched.
Yeongjo’s growth from just two design divisions to its current size owed much to his leadership.
When he sat at the center of the presidents’ table, Yeongjo’s aura began to blaze.
“Seung-jin… can you handle this? Of all times… damn,” Yoo muttered under his breath.
At that moment Assistant Manager Lee Su-min appeared, carrying a model draped in cloth. She set it on the stand in the middle of the hall and nodded to Team Leader Mo. After confirming the setup, Mo stared only at his messenger window.
“Section 7’s up next, huh? Let’s have a look,” the president remarked.
A sudden hush fell over the hall. Every hawk-eye turned toward the screen.
Director Park Seong-gi hooked a smirk at the corner of his mouth and stared daggers as if to say, Let’s see what you’ve got.
Ding.
Geonshin’s PPT file arrived.
Mo Seung-jin inhaled deeply, opened the mail, and launched the file.
“Very well. Section 7 design-pool presentation will begin now.”
“First, I’d like to ask you a question.”
Standing before a blank screen, Team Leader Mo opened with an easy tone.
“On your way home, have any of you ever seen a rabbit?”
At the odd question, the directors glanced about. Some wondered whether they should answer—of course they weren’t truly searching their memories. They were worried that answering might somehow help Section 7.
“No. I’ve never seen one.”
An unexpected reply came from President Lee Sang-man himself. His face unreadable, he kept his eyes on the screen. Snickers followed.
“Maybe it escaped from the zoo.”
“When I was a kid, we ate rabbit meat all the time. Markets were full of them.”
“Rabbit? Maybe it’s racing a tortoise.”
As if prepared for that, Mo continued quickly.
“Think back, you may remember seeing this scene in childhood.”
He hit the space bar. The first slide showed no text or title, only an illustration of a rabbit clutching a pocket-watch and sprinting, with Alice watching from afar.
“Isn’t that Alice in Wonderland?”
“Why’s he talking about fairy tales?”
“Aren’t we here about building a bridge? What is this presentation?”
No one was more stunned than Director Yoo-uk. What could that picture possibly have to do with a bridge? He shot a side glance at the presidents: the president’s expression unchanged, but the three division heads were frowning at the screen.
Park Seong-gi, meanwhile, was beaming.
Completely nuts. Ha! Like kids playing around. He imagined Section 7 getting obliterated and chuckled silently.
During the snickering, Geonshin slipped in through the back door.
“It’ll be all right, won’t it?” Su-min whispered worriedly.
“Sink or swim,” Geonshin answered, smiling.
Mo followed the script calmly.
“Most of you probably read Alice in Wonderland once as children. Back then you may have wished a rabbit would show up and take you, like Alice, to Wonderland, to meet Humpty Dumpty, the Queen of Hearts…”
The next slide showed Alice standing alone in a deserted city.
“But no rabbit appears before Alice anymore. It’s vanished from the city. None of you have seen a rabbit here… Yet what vanished wasn’t the rabbit.”
His measured tone started drawing attention.
“What disappeared was your imagination.”
A couple of directors and even Yoo snorted softly: Look at these guys.
Catching the micro-reactions, Geonshin smiled.
First five minutes: hook them with a question and draw them in with a relatable story, then begin persuasion.
“In drab, joyless cities, imagination no longer exists. Perhaps it’s the shabby reality of grown-ups who lost their innocence. We’ve all become grown-up Alices who can’t see rabbits.
Architecture isn’t only about building sturdy houses and bridges. We’re responsible for creating spaces of fun and imagination. So we decided to revive the missing rabbit… right here.”
A slide appeared: a curious rabbit hopping across the KIST grounds while a researcher watches from behind.
“After asking what researchers need beyond a corridor, we chose one keyword: imagination.
For people worn out by a war of ones and zeros inside the research park, the bridge should heal and refresh them. Let them become Alice chasing the rabbit. If crossing our bridge sparks that thought, it becomes a space that offers far more than a passage.”
Words alone meant nothing; they needed a design that made imagination tangible. If their concept image looked clumsy, the audience who’d followed the story so far would turn into hungry hyenas in an instant.
Dump section’s all talk. So how will they show this? Paint rabbits on the wall? Ha! Park Seong-gi thought Section 7 was digging its own grave.
But Geonshin faced the screen with confidence.
He trusted his idea.
Strictly speaking, this bridge…
…was based on a project actually built in the 2010s by Denmark’s legendary firm BIG, a work rooted in comic-book imagination. Their collected works were even published as an actual comic book. The storytelling of that bridge was so overwhelming it created its own universe and won public praise.
Meaning: the design had already been validated by professionals and the public. If Yeongjo rejected it, that simply meant their vision was as small as a knot-hole in a plank.
But I know Yeongjo.
Though he’d only spent a month here as a temp in the past, after returning he felt the firm’s level was far beyond expectation. Twenty-three-year-old Geonshin simply couldn’t match it back then…
Would they really dismiss a genuine masterpiece?
“Our project is titled ‘Becoming Alice.’”
When Mo advanced the slide, everyone doubted their eyes. The interior of an actual built bridge filled the screen, CG so crisp it looked like a photograph.
Ceiling and walls pure white. The right wall was a glass curtain showing the campus; the opposite wall and ceiling cracked open, jagged fragments running the length.
As if a dimension were ripping open.
Shards gradually turned into pixels, evoking a LEGO-like texture. Through the gaps, the outside scene peeped in.
The image looked exactly like a portal to another realm from a film or game.
No rabbit drawings, no Alice dolls.
Reality and fantasy interwoven into one space.
Pull out the image already hiding in people’s minds. No long lecture, no forcing. That’s the power of image. Everyone knows it.
The tactic hit. Su-min stared at Geonshin in awe: the stunning CG slide was what he had crafted alone till dawn.
All thanks to 3DS Max.
3DS Max—Autodesk’s modeling program, released in 1996, capable of high-end animation and CG. Ordinary now, but in 2002 specialized academies had only just sprung up. Few architecture firms used it themselves; CG companies charged hundreds of thousands of won per rendering.
In his late twenties, after an atelier where he worked closed in the red, Geonshin had spent time at a senior’s CG firm.
Rusty though he was, the “Skill” entry in his status window gave his hands wings. Pressing Skill lit a glowing “1” on the back of his hand. Feeling the energy surge, he flexed it in wonder.
This is amazing…!
One point was plenty to model the bridge. Commands and the perspective image aligned crisply in his head like a print job. The mouse in his right hand danced, while his left fluttered over the keys like a piano. The on-screen mass turned swiftly into a refined bridge.
Silence swept the hall.
Overpowered by the CG, no one even breathed. Slide by slide, Mo showed a walkthrough sequence like a panorama following someone’s gaze. The audience felt themselves strolling inside.
Director Yoo’s mouth slowly sagged open; Park Seong-gi’s folded arms unwound. The division presidents straightened and peered closely at the images. Directors who had poised pens to tear the project apart found nothing to note.
Start with storytelling, finish with imagery.
Geonshin nodded to himself.
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