My Historic Architecture Project

Recently I began to pursue an unique project: recreating Seoul's lost and often neglected architectural history. I chose my medium to be... Legos. :)

The picture above is a postcard dating back to 1920s, showing Seoul during the colonial/modernization period. The first building pictured is today's old Seoul Station (서울역), while the second building is Seoul Central Post Office (서울중앙우체국), which was called before the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule as Keijo Post Office (경성우편국; 京城郵便局). Seoul Station is one of few buildings that survive to this day, while the post office was sadly lost by air raids during the Korean War.

These eclectic western-style buildings were built in the first half of the 20th century to reflect progress and often awe the traditional Korean public by the Japanese. Many Japanese were living in Seoul during the colonial period, and these buildings were meant to serve their needs; this was a time when Korean was forbidden and the Japanese government worked hard to "eradicate" Korean culture.

Perhaps not surprisingly, these colonial yet historic buildings did not survive more than a century; often they were either destroyed during the Korean War or demolished in order to make way for new modern development projects. Most notable demolition happened in 1995, when the former Japanese General Government Building was symbolically demolished in order to restore Gyeongbokgung Palace to its former form. (An irony here is that the Japanese Government building itself was built by the Japanese after systemically demolishing Gyeongbokgung Palace, a symbol of Korea's traditional royal authority)

However, the Korean public today is beginning to realize the historic and cultural importance of buildings created during this painful period. Even the most painful and bitter history is still history worth preserving, and often these buildings served for many decades after Korea's liberation, thus making them endearing to Koreans as well. Many are now active in preserving these historic buildings for future generations, because this act is more meaningful than destroying these buildings and thus losing all memories attached to them.



I loved to play with Legos when I was a child, but stopped playing as I grew older. Recently, though, I rediscovered childish joy (and perhaps nostalgia) of making things when I assembled my Cafe Corner and Eiffel Tower.

Lego Group supplies a freely-downloadable program called Lego Digital Designer (LDD). It allows me to design a virtual Lego building without that much of brick constraints and to even purchase my creations online.

The screenshots of my models of the old Seoul Station and Seoul Central Post Office are shown above. Neither of these models are currently finished because my laptop (MacBook) does not let me to add more by freezing and showing error messages. I think this is due to my laptop's inherent weak graphic card. :(

Still, I had a wonderful time designing and assembling my models. It was a tedious and tiresome process, for I had to constantly compare my collected photos of these buildings with my models and rethink ways of assembling Legos; but in the end, I am quite satisfied with my creations. Now I can actually see these buildings in three dimensions instead of just two with my computer, and can even dream of owning one.

This project is still not finished, and I probably will continue with a different computer in the future. :)

Legos are just amazing in their flexibility. I love them.

St. John the Baptist's Enigma

Leonardo da Vinci painted his last (known) painting, St. John the Baptist, around 1513 to 1516. Just three years later, he died in Cloux, France, while this painting still under his possession.

How St. John the Baptist is unconventionally conveyed by Leonardo, with his ambiguous gesture towards heaven, is a mystery that perplexed many art critics and scholars for centuries. The fact that the painting is Leonardo's last only deepens this mystery.

Traditionally before Leonardo, St. John the Baptist was often portrayed as a tough, determined and bearded (therefore masculine, crude) man who was fit for wilderness and desert. However, Leonardo chose to paint him as a strikingly young, handsome, and delicately featured man who simply gestures towards heaven, almost in a manner of Greek (pagan) mythological figures. His elegant curly hair graces his head, and a deep, featureless shadow is all around him, enhancing the chiaroscuro effect that the master is so famous for.

Why did Leonardo choose to portray St. John in this way?

Many generally believe that the man in the portrait is modeled after Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, Leonardo's pupil. His nickname was Salai (Trans: The Little Unclean One).

I think that perhaps Leonardo, who by then was an old (and probably retrospective) man, wanted to portray a saint full of youth and mischievousness. Maybe Leonardo himself was longing for his younger years of his life.

The baptism also symbolizes the new life, the birth, in Christianity; does it not fitting, then, that St. John, the giver of life, would have to be young?

Tartini and the Devil's Trill

The Lucifer of Liège (Le génie du mal) by Guillaume Geefs; Picture by Luc Viatour







The Devil's Trill Sonata (Il Trillo Del Diavolo), also known as the Violin Sonata in G minor, is a composition for solo violin by an Italian composer and violinist named Giuseppe Tartini (1692~1770), who was said to be inspired to write it after he met the Devil in his dream.

According to the interview accounts by a French astronomer and writer Jérôme Lalande, Tartini dreamed in 1713 that the Devil stood next to his bed and tried to possess his soul by making a compact. To challange the Devil, Tartini handed out his violin to the Devil and asked him to play it. Surprisingly, the Devil immediately played an exquisitely beautiful and ethereal music with such a great skill that Tartini listened with utter astonishment and shock.

When he woke up, Tartini instantly began to write down the Devil's Trill Sonata from his dream, trying to recapture the Devil's music. However, despite the sonata's reception and success, Tartini lamented that his music was very inferior to what he had heard.

He even writes, "The sonata I composed at that time was certainly my best, and I still call it the Devil’s Sonata, but this composition is so far beneath the one I heard in my dream, that I would have broken my violin and given up music altogether, had I been able to live without it."

The sonata itself is infamous for its technical difficulty.

Although the sonata is called the Devil's Sonata, it is very beautiful. I can only imagine the real music behind Tartini's dream and inspiration...

A Dream

I had a strange dream today. It was so impressionable that I can still vaguely remember and write...

I remember seeing a hauntingly beautiful yet somewhat strange starry night with a person that I know (I cannot remember who it was). There was the constellation Orion, brightly burning.

Then the sky developed a dark hole and I was somehow (quickly) sucked right into this hole; the sky was like a vacumn cleaner, and I was helpless against it. I was so terrified that I woke up, shaking, with a sensation of being lifted still lingering.

Is there a meaning behind this dream? Why was I so afraid?


I wonder if my dream can be called a nightmare.

My Favorite: Casa Batlló

By Caribb, Flickr

By MorBCN, Flickr

By guercio, Flickr

By (Erik), Flickr

Casa Batlló, one of Antoni Gaudí's most beautiful masterpieces, is located at Passeig de Gràcia of the Eixample District in Barcelona. The Eixample literally means "extension" in Catalan, and the district was constructed accordingly between the 19th and 20th century.

Locally also known as Casa dels ossos (House of... Bones), Casa Batlló was actually already built in 1877 in a conventional style; Antoni Gaudí only "remodeled" the building during the years 1905 to 1907. At the time, Barcelona was expanding rapidly and emerged as the largest city of Spain, and its economic prosperity brought the cultural movement known as the Catalan Renaissance or Renaixença.

The building's stunning architectural details show Gaudí's creative and deeply individualistic style, and some parts of the building (like the corridor shown) are very modern in design. It seems to me that Santiago Calatrava (another Spanish but contemporary architect) is inspired by Casa Batlló.

Gaudí certainly was aware of Art Nouveau and was deeply influenced by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's writings and by his architectural visions regarding Gothic architecture. The building features organic motifs, including a colorful roof that resembles dragon's spine and skin and windows flanked by skeleton-like columns.

It is one of my favorite buildings by Gaudí. I am always stunned at how he used so many colors to decorate this building while not making it look kitsch.