Chapter 35. The Controversial Work
Geonshin closed his laptop, set it aside, and looked at the empty desk.
He had decided that presenting his proposal with flashy renderings and colorful diagrams would diminish the meaning of remembrance. His thoughts returned to the library checkout card whose final entry remained frozen on the name Park Changmin.
That single card, which Geonshin had kept in memory of him, contained nothing more than a name written in pencil inside a box outlined with black lines.
‘Knowing him and thinking about how his life ended, this kind of simplicity reaches me more deeply.’
When creating a presentation panel, he had to convey his proposal as effectively as possible while also leaving a powerful impression. Normally, techniques using computer programs were the standard solution for accomplishing that.
But as Geonshin looked at the library checkout card, he realized he needed a different approach to express the emotions it stirred in him.
To Geonshin, that library checkout card was like a single black-and-white photograph containing Changmin’s name.
A faded black-and-white photograph.
Geonshin picked up a pencil.
He felt that a bird’s-eye perspective and panel drawn with a single black pencil could better convey that subdued, aching emotion.
‘This time, I won’t use a computer for the panel. I’ll draw it by hand.’
Too much of any technique could become poison. Sometimes those techniques added nothing but unnecessary excess to a work.
Overblown bird’s-eye perspectives. Diagrams of dubious purpose seemingly made only to grab attention. Attempts to fill the proposal’s hollow ideas with visuals.
They dazzled people’s eyes, but the results had no substance.
If he truly wanted to confront people with a sense of the problem, he had to strip away all that clutter and leave only the core.
That way, he could make the people who saw it reflect again on what architecture truly meant.
In another situation, people might have cursed him for being pretentiously artsy. But the place he was submitting this to was none other than the Korea Architecture Competition.
His austere concept might actually stand out as a somber analog panel amid all the flashy, overblown digital panels.
His bold approach itself would catch the eye more easily. And if the sincerity and ideas behind the proposal stood out as well, there would be nothing more he could ask for.
The problem was that he would have to fill this enormous sheet entirely by hand…
‘That’s the one thing that won’t be a problem.’
What problem could there be when he had a Skill window?
Geonshin picked up the pencil, opened his status window, and activated a skill.
The number 15 began to glow on the back of his hand, and an intense light transferred into the pencil. The pencil began writhing in Geonshin’s hand as its graphite core drew lines across the white sheet.
One by one, Geonshin carefully drew the memorial space that existed inside his mind.
He gradually filled the paper using nothing but a monochrome palette of black and white. His eyes were more serious and brighter than they had ever been.
And so the lights in Geonshin’s studio remained on throughout the night.
Three days later, the TA stepped out of the department office and looked down the hallway.
‘That’s strange.’
Normally, once class ended, the students would be busy chatting in the hallway. But today, not a single one of them was in sight.
‘I’m sure they had Architectural Drafting today. Where did all the kids carrying drafting boards go?’
Architectural Drafting (建築製圖).
It referred to the most fundamental form of drawing in architectural design.
Architectural drawings were originally instructions for construction, encompassing floor plans, elevations, sections, and even perspective drawings that made the design easier to understand.
In the past, before technology had advanced, all of it naturally had to be done by hand.
But after CAD became an essential program in architecture, the significance of manual architectural drafting had faded considerably.
Of course, an architect who was good at sketching might find it more useful for personal work. But the architect licensing exam still required applicants to draw directly on drafting boards, so students tended to learn it reluctantly because they had no choice.
On days when they had to sling those enormous drafting boards over one shoulder and ride the subway, the students could not help feeling self-conscious, as though they were inconveniencing the other passengers.
In that sense, Architectural Drafting was a headache in more ways than one.
‘Oh, right. Today’s the day Geonshin submits his architecture competition entry.’
The night before, Geonshin had asked the TA to help him submit his work for the Korea Architecture Competition.
Even while taking the call, the TA had wondered whether any of it made sense, but in his confusion, he had agreed before he knew it.
‘I’m sure that guy Geonshin only picked up the application a few days ago. Are you telling me he finished it already? Or was that some kind of prank call?’
In truth, it would be impossible for Geonshin to carry both the panel and the model by himself.
He could play along and go to the studio. Once he got there, he would find out whether it was a prank.
Still, Geonshin had been working part-time at Yeongjo Architecture and going back and forth because of one project after another, and it seemed that his example was motivating some of the other students too.
Of course, there were also students who sneered behind his back that a professor had simply pulled strings to get him in.
But the TA knew better.
Yeongjo Architecture was not the kind of place where someone could keep surviving just because a professor had gotten them through the door.
It was Yeongjo Architecture, after all.
He headed up the stairs at the end of the architecture department hallway toward the studios.
But for some reason, the stairwell that was normally packed with discarded materials and trash had been completely cleaned.
That almost never happened, so the TA looked up and down the stairwell several times.
“Wow. I never thought I’d live to see this place clean. This is the architecture department hallway, right?”
The TA climbed the stairs and stepped into the hallway lined with studios.
Then he flinched at the sight before him.
So this was where everyone had gone.
There were so many people gathered there that it looked as though every student in the department was standing in that hallway. Their drafting boards had been lined up in a row against one wall, while everyone crowded together and stared at something.
“What the hell? What’s going on?”
The TA pushed his way through the forest of students and entered the studio.
The inside was just as packed.
Then he spotted someone in the middle of the room.
“I was wondering what all this was about. It’s just Geonshin. Geon….”
He stopped in the middle of calling out to him.
The moment he saw the panel in front of Geonshin, the words caught in his throat and he drew a sharp breath.
“Huh….”
The TA stared at the work before him and fell silent for a moment, overcome by a kind of awe he had never experienced before.
During his years in the architecture department, he had seen countless student projects and even helped professors with their personal work.
But the panel and model in front of Geonshin were unlike anything he had ever seen.
“What… is this?”
Geonshin sat there adding pencil shading to the panel, while a large model rested on a table beside him.
Despite the sheer number of students in the room, it was silent enough to hear a pin drop.
Was this really how different someone who worked at Yeongjo Architecture was?
At that moment, the students were riding a roller coaster between despair and awe.
Those who had felt jealous of Geonshin began to feel ashamed of themselves.
Then again, how many of them had actually known Geonshin’s true ability before bad-mouthing him?
And judging by Geonshin before his regression, it was also true that his ability back then had not been so outstanding that criticizing him would have seemed absurd.
But now, there was only one thing Geonshin had to say about that.
‘If you’ve got a problem with it, then you can regress too.’
In any case, when Geonshin sensed the TA’s arrival, he stopped what he was doing and turned around.
“Oh. TA hyung. You’re here? Huh?”
Geonshin had not realized that so many people were staring at him either.
He had been continuously using the skill from his status window, causing him to sink into a dreamlike world where he was focused entirely on finishing the panel.
The moment Geonshin turned around, the students began pouring out their admiration as though they had been waiting for the opportunity.
“…Wow. This is seriously insane.”
“This is a panel? You really did all of this yourself?”
“Oppa, what did you make that model out of? Don’t tell me… it’s not that, is it?”
“Geonshin, seriously, you could teach classes here….”
Geonshin had been relatively composed when he was at Yeongjo Architecture.
But trying to act impressive in front of these fresh-faced youngsters made him feel his face growing hot.
‘If you guys keep drawing plans in this field until you’re forty, you’ll all be able to do this much too, you punks.’
Of course, when he thought about it carefully, that was a small deception born from his embarrassment.
To reproduce the skill he had just demonstrated, one would need at least three separate Skills.
A quiet voice slipped out from among the younger students.
“We might actually be looking at the Korean version of Tadao Ando right now….”
‘To go back twenty years and hear something like that.’
Seeing the junior looking at him with sparkling eyes, Geonshin pictured himself in his twenties, always sitting in one corner of the studio reading collections of Tadao Ando’s work.
Then he remembered himself in his forties, long since out of school and living as a CAD monkey.
As he looked at the students staring at him in wonder, he wondered how they would endure the harsh storms of the unforgiving architecture industry awaiting them.
‘I should teach them some useful know-how someday. For now, getting this submitted comes first.’
Geonshin gathered up the panel and model and spoke to the TA.
“TA hyung. Let’s hurry. It’s time to submit it.”
The Seoul Arts Center.
Preparations for judging had been going on busily throughout the night since the previous evening.
With such an enormous number of works submitted, the organizers, the Korea Institute of Architects, first inspected the panels and filtered out roughly half of the lower-quality entries. The remaining works were then arranged alongside their models.
Naturally, not every submission could be of a high standard.
There were plenty of panels that were difficult even to make sense of, works at an elementary-school level, and entries that genuinely made people wonder whether someone was playing a joke.
The works that survived that process awaited formal evaluation by the judges.
Through their judging, they would select Honorable Mentions, Excellence Awards, Special Selections, the Top Excellence Award, and finally the prestigious Grand Prize.
Naturally, the closed-door judging process worked like this.
The judges walked around carrying stickers and placed one on each proposal they considered outstanding.
The thirty works that received the most stickers from the eight judges would remain and undergo a more detailed second round of judging.
At that stage, heated debates would erupt among the judges, and sometimes even arguments.
After all, these were masters with different architectural philosophies. How easy could it possibly be to find a work that satisfied all of them?
And if an award that people found difficult to accept emerged from a competition boasting such a long tradition, that would become a problem in itself.
To truly earn the title of Grand Prize winner, a work had to convince at least those eight masters and earn the recognition of the students who had submitted entries.
For that reason, even among the judges, the reputation of the chairperson responsible for overseeing the entire process was extremely important.
It needed to create the effect of:
If an architect of that caliber approved it, then who am I to complain?
And now, the important man appointed as this year’s judging chair arrived at the exhibition hall.
“Ah, Mr. Seung! You’ve arrived!”
An organizer hurried over from a distance to greet him.
Architect Seung Yugyeol.
He was regarded as one of the finest architects alive and had been the first disciple of the late architect Kim Suin.
As one of the early members of Yeongjo Architecture, Seung Yugyeol was still only in his mid-fifties, yet he had already created enough work to hold several solo architecture exhibitions at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts.
In truth, there were only a handful of architects in Korea capable of filling an exhibition hall of that size.
That was only possible when both the quality and quantity of one’s work were exceptional.
True to his status as Kim Suin’s disciple, he had firmly established himself as one of the pillars of Korean architecture. Prominent figures from politics and business even waited their turn to ask him to design their homes.
There was not much money in judging student work.
At most, the judges received enough from the students’ entry fees to cover transportation and a meal, so there was nothing forcing someone of his stature to participate.
But architects who took pride in architecture as a form of art personally took part in outside activities like this, working in various ways to elevate the standing of Korean architecture.
Architect Seung Yugyeol was no different.
Unlike figures in other fields who reached the top and then shut themselves away in order to cultivate an air of mystery, he took on a variety of positions and worked in many ways for the advancement of architecture.
An organizer approached judging chair Seung Yugyeol and explained a few things.
“Sir, thank you very much for agreeing to judge this year’s architecture competition.”
“I’m just here to see whether there’s anything useful I can pick up from the young ones’ work.”
“Oh, come on. Of all people, how can you say something like that? Hahaha!”
The organizer and Seung Yugyeol merely chuckled as they exchanged jokes, but there was actually some bite behind the humor.
Among architects whose creative edge had begun to fade, there were indeed some who deliberately participated in judging competitions.
Their excuse might be that they were looking for fresh stimulation, but in reality, some came to see whether there was anything worth copying.
For architects who had become so trapped in practical reality that fresh ideas grew increasingly difficult to produce, student works overflowing with clumsy but striking concepts were excellent material for loosening up their rigid minds.
And though rare, sometimes there really was a diamond in the rough among them.
“Mr. Seung, here are your stickers and the list of entries. If you follow them clockwise from here, they should be in order.”
“All right. Understood. You must have worked very hard preparing all this.”
“This is what we do every day. If anything, you’ll have it harder if you intend to examine all the works carefully.”
“Well, examining work is what I do every day too. Hahaha. I just hope there’s something worth looking at. I haven’t seen much of that lately.”
“They’re student works, after all. I imagine they’ll look rough to someone like you.”
“Still, it’s the architecture competition. I doubt it’ll be boring.”
“Ah, actually, more than that….”
“Hmm?”
“…Ah, never mind, sir. Please go ahead and begin the judging. I need to explain things to the others as well…. Thank you again.”
For a moment, the organizer had almost said something to Seung Yugyeol.
But because the rules prohibited him from doing so, he barely managed to stop himself.
The truth was, the previous night, when the organizers had been filtering the panels, there had been exactly one troublesome entry.
The organizers had spent quite a long time debating whether they should remove it.
Some argued that it was obviously going to cause problems and should be eliminated early.
But as someone who had also practiced architecture himself, the organizer ultimately decided to leave the evaluation of such a controversial work to the judges.
The organizers’ job ended there.
More importantly, in terms of quality, there was no question that it was an accomplished piece that could not simply be eliminated.
‘What was the title again? Judging by its number, it should be somewhere in Exhibition Hall A….’
The employee flipped through the entry list and found the controversial work he had heavily marked in red pen.
Entry No. 314 / Title: [Seocho-dong 1685-3]
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