Kim Swoo-geun practised at a period when the terms of architecture itself were under argument.
The record lists Kim Swoo-geun as South Korean architect (1931-1986).
Kim Swoo-geun was born at Chongjin in 1931. His recorded nationality is South Korea. He trained at University of Tokyo and Seoul National University.
Post-war architecture built at state scale: housing, new towns and civic megastructures, with results that are still being judged.
He is recorded as architect and urban planner.
Among his best-known works are Seoul Olympic Main Stadium and West Ekbatan Complex. Buildings outlast their architects and usually their purposes, which is what makes the discipline unforgiving.
That the work was built in South Korea shaped it: climate, materials, planning law and who holds the budget all decide what can actually be built.
Kim Swoo-geun died in 1986, aged 55. The buildings remain, still in use by people who never knew the name - which is the particular afterlife architecture offers.
Achievements
- Notable work: Seoul Olympic Main Stadium
- Notable work: West Ekbatan Complex
- Trained at University of Tokyo and Seoul National University
