YoulHwaDang Book Hall

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YouHwaDang Book Hall, front façade facing the Art Yard. The façade has a delicate in-situ cast concrete relief, like a drawing, giving the building a  sense of civility. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
Giovanni Mansueti, Miracle at San Lio (1494), Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.  Figures are standing in almost every window observing a procession of people in the public space in front of the buildings. It seems as if the buildings become like figures themselves, speaking to the open space in front of them.
Design study sketch of the articulation of the tectonic relief of the public façade. Drawing: Florian Beigel, March 2007.
Looking towards the Art Yard and Entrance Portico of the YouHwaDang Book Hall building from the Bookmaker’s Street in Paju Book City. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
Design study model of the tectonic relief of the public façade facing the Art Yard and the city. Model: Thomas Gantner, ARU, May 2007.
Design study sketch of the architectural composition of the public façade facing the Art Yard and the city. Drawing: Florian Beigel, May 2007.
Ground floor public spaces between and inside the Cultural Cluster of three publishing houses at the south end of the Bookmaker’s Street.
A Cultural Cluster of three publishing houses in Paju Book City, each designed by ARU in collaboration with MARU and NiA. Drawing: ARU, April 2007.
Design study model, early option of the Youl Hwa Dang Book Hall public façade, Art Yard and Entrance Portico Building. Model: Thomas Gantner, ARU, March 2007.
The Youl Hwa Dang Book Hall building is conceived as a number of closely packed buildings next to, or on top of each other. Model: Thomas Gantner, ARU, March 2007.
Youl Hwa Dang ground floor plan, with Youl Hwa Dang Phase 01 on the left, Phase 02 on the right and the public Art Yard at bottom right.
Entrance Portico with the main facade facing the public Art Yard. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
An urban interior. The book cabinets of the Book Hall are like small scale figurative buildings. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
Design study sketch of the interior of the Book Hall, with a large concrete exhibition wall on the left with windows to the Lounge Mezzanine Gallery above. Drawing: Thomas Gantner, ARU, Jan. 2008.
Looking towards the stairway from the Lounge Mezzanine Gallery with the Book Hall to the right. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
Interior of the Rare Book Library. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
Looking from the entrance staircase towards the Book Café. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
View of the large 3rd floor window in the apartment above the Book Hall. One can see the new Bada Publishing House across the street, the Simhak mountain beyond, and one of the ARU designed standing paper lamps on the right. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.
YouHwaDang Book Hall front façade facing the Bookmaker’s Street in early evening. Photo: Jonathan Lovekin, June 2009.

YoulHwaDang Book Hall, Paju Book City, South Korea

Florian Beigel + ARU London, Choi JongHoon + NIA Seoul

(Building completed: January, 2009)

A City Cluster of Publishing Houses in Paju Book City, Korea

Paju has a unique sense of civility which can be experienced in a special public realm comprising the wetland canal unifying the entire estate, a number of cultural building clusters, the city views of the Han River landscape and the Simhak Mountain and the street spaces running north south parallel to the river. Some publishing houses on the main streets make gifts to the city with little public squares and public courtyards extending the space off the street.

ARU has completed three publishing houses at Paju Book City, two for Youl Hwa Dang Publishing House and one for Positive Thinking People Publishing House. These buildings sit along side each other on Bookmaker’s Street, forming a city cluster in Paju with a generosity of spirit and sense of civility.

YoulHwaDang Book Hall Building

The third building in the Cluster of three buildings is the recently completed Book Hall, an extension of Youl Hwa Dang Publisher to the north of the original black building.

The Book Hall building also makes an offering to the city in form of the Art Yard, a little public square off Book Maker’s Street. The Book Hall opens to the Art Yard under a small portico building. Entering the hall gives a feeling of stepping into a contemplative memory place. The little portico building nestling in the Art Yard can’t deny its parents.

Similar to the language of Positive Thinking People Building and in a more archaic way, similar to the black Youl Hwa Dang building next to it, the façade of the Book Hall Building facing the Art Yard speaks a friendly classical language of vertical differentiation. It is composed of closely packed buildings next to each other or on top of each other with different characters and architectural proportions. They are all simple wall and window buildings. A closer look at the façade reveals 3 or 4 different architectural characters in the Art Yard façade. The different characters to some extent reflect the essential spatial differentiation behind the facades: Book Hall, Mezzanine Lounge, Reading Room, and Book Café, with double storey Apartments stacked on top.

Selected Publications

Chosun Daily News, Seoul
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Building Design
Youlhwadang Publishing House Phase 02, Paju Book City, by Ellis Woodman, 11 Sep. 2009, p.10-13, ISSN 0007-3423.

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Financial Times
'Publishing houses', by Edwin Heathcote, 22/23 Aug, 2009, Life & Arts section, p.8.
www.ft.com
'A city dedicated to books and print', by Edwin Heathcote,21 Aug, 2009,

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