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SeungEon Kang is a spatial designer passionate about interior/architectural design and digital technologies.  (More)
















House of the Medusa,      Spatial, 2022
Beyond the Walls,      Spatial, 2024
Is it a table?,      2025
Rooftop Promenade,      Architectural, 2024
^{Essay, Pavilion as a new model for city branding: the relationship between the flexibility of a city and the placeness of a pavilion (View)}
Entrance,      Architectural,  2024
Ephemerality,      Digital, 2023






Architectural Drawings,      2022-2024
JustArchiveItAll Photobook VOL. 1,      2024
Invitation Card,      2024
^{WdKA Spatial/Product Design 3rd year Portfolio Night Event}
Nocturnal Bubbles,       Digital, 2023
Capsule,      2022
^{Showcase, Showcased the Capsule Project as a stage background during the performance by LudoWic and Roel Weerdenburg.}

Pavilion as a new model for city branding:

the relationship between the flexibility of a city and the placeness of a pavilion

1. Introduction

   In recent years, due to the rising competition among cities driven by globalization, cities have been forced to update constantly to embrace this diversification. In this process, the connection between people and the city has weakened. Cities perceive the need to build city identity in response to the change, and at the same time they should consider the need for city images that are acceptable to all people, that is, can connect people and cities. In that sense, it is necessary to reconceive iconic buildings that many cities have utilized to establish the identity of the city. Moving away from the notion of conventional iconic buildings, I aim to explore the possibility of transitioning of the iconic building in response to urban change and the establishment of a saleable identity by suggesting a new model of the iconic building, Pavilion. This study aims to question the influence of the pavilion as an iconic building through creating saleable images on a city. Therefore, this study argues that the pavilion is a new model for city branding.







2. Transition of an iconic building

2.1. Pavilion versus monument    

   The pavilion is a tent built for a short time in a place where certain genuine experiences are held during specific moments. The contemporary pavilion seems to have created itself as a symbolic work, which is formed by a spatial reproduction of a particular thought and place. The pavilion, as a special temporary architectural form, cannot be separated from its site, thus forming its own reproduction. In contrast, the monument is a structure fixed to the ground with a ceremonial spirit that desires eternity, which changes the perception of the place where it took root and the architectural space it was representing. Because of the necessity of monumentality in modern architecture, the building, characterized by “an open and fluid vast space that generates a loss of a sense of direction, a weakening of the symbolism of façade, and a weakening of regional differences,” becomes a space of “Placelessness.”(Jung&Park 2021).

   The current most iconic buildings are monumental, for example, the Guggenheim Museum, the Cube Houses, and the Swiss Re Office building. Nonetheless, while the primary purpose of constructing iconic buildings is to create an identifiable city image, many extant iconic buildings disregard the local context and diminish the value of surroundings without reproducing cities’ images. Whereas, the pavilion is *site-specific art, which indicates that “to remove the work from the site is to destroy the work”. Robert Barry declared in a 1969 interview. Namely, the pavilion claims the identity and uniqueness of the site and place.





*Site-specific art is artwork created for a specific location, integrating elements of the environment into the piece. It interacts with the site's characteristics and challenges traditional art boundaries, encouraging immersive engagement with both the artwork and its surroundings.





2.2. Spaces and events: Pavilion to resonate the image of a city

   Many cities have constructed iconic buildings to attract attention. However, in the modern era, several iconic buildings designed with monumental architecture have become passive objects of contemplation, struggling to provide the experience of an authentic location due to their tendency to pursue universality and technological rationality, replacing regionality and history.

   In this trend of modernism and functionalism, Bernard Tschumi captured an issue of modern urban planning. He captured that the main concern was the return of activity and programs as “functions”, given that architectural ideologies from earlier periods aimed to stabilize society and perpetuate the system. He also considered it as the moment of the loss of innocence in 20th-century architecture: the moment when it became clear that neither supertechnology, expressionist functionalism, nor neo-Corbusianism could solve society's ills and that architecture was not ideologically neutral (Bernard 1994). As a result of this tendency, he brought back the pavilion as a place of action- at the time, the pavilion was the physical equivalent of the deconstructivist spirit of the time, replacing the meaning of the power and paradise of the pre-modern pavilion with modern thought. Tschumi applied those into the pavilion that are neutral form factors that do not enforce any social norms, and it is assumed that the void space between the form factors functions as an open field of activity. This means the advent of events due to the various movements of people.

   Therefore, the supply of the shape of a void where an event can be held becomes the exclusive responsibility of architecture. And the pavilion becomes the place of the event.







   The complementarity between events and spaces is essential to make events appealing to people. Shock should be manufactured on the organization of events to activate diverse programs for attracting people, as writers could manipulate the structure of stories by twisting vocabulary and grammar. There is a disjunction between spaces and programs. The conflict between events and spaces is generated by suggesting programs that were impossible on the sites that were to house them. The relation between contrived and artificial programs and the building is simultaneously to reject all functionalist leaning and to attract people. In other words, people can relate to the building through programs, which means that it connects people to the context of the site of the building. Acceptable and saleable identity is established.

   To reduce the distance that comes from the disjunction between space and programs, verbal and visual materials are utilized in parallel. The role of the text was fundamental in that it illustrated and provided programs or events, it highlighted some aspects of the complementing of events and spaces. Beyond the description by the conventional verbal, the literature suggested juxtaposition with visual materials, Serial sequence. The spatial sequence is expressed by movement notation mapping the actual movement of bodies in spaces. Movement notation recalls the purpose of the architecture and spaces are about the complementation of their experience of the events and spaces.

    Parallel provision of literary and sequence of events places programs in the pavilion based on the urban context. Events, movements, and spaces are juxtaposed in mutual tension. The work goes forward with a synthetic and flexible attitude. The shift of spaces and events has gone full circle, which strengthens the connection between a transformative place and diverse people.







3. City branding in a fast-changing city

   As many cities are globalized, the competition among cities is intensifying to promote its city. Among several approaches for city promotion, the construction of iconic buildings has been broadly used. For effective city branding, the building should create an identifiable image. The main aim in the construction of the brand of cities is the articulation of the city in the globalized world (Naciye&Mukaddes 2011). Thus, iconic buildings should consider sociocultural, historical, and environmental contexts. By combining those, a saleable identity that is acceptable to all people is created.

   For instance, the Louvre Pyramid is a good example. The used material generates an attractive image against the massive surrounding which creates visual harmony with the context. Therefore, the transparent pyramid is successfully integrated into the vicinity from a physical point of view. Even though it is an iconic building, as it is unique and outstanding, it is considering the given context without diminishing the image of the existing tissue and contributing to the image of the space. On the other hand, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a non-contextual approach, neglecting the existing context and diminishing the value of the immediate surroundings. Similarly, the Swiss Re Office building with its reproducible image is not considering the existing context or location (Naciye&Mukaddes 2011).







4. Conclusion

   In recent years, the diversity and activity of cities have been increasing dramatically. It fragments and reproduces places repeatedly. The context of the city is not permanent, but temporary. The iconic building, which serves as a bridge between the city and the people, becomes significant in this context. As a new alternative to complement the limitations of the existing convention monumental iconic buildings, the Pavilion is proposed as a new model for city branding.











Bibliography

1) Jung, Hyejin, and Soram Park. “Pavilion as an architecture of new placeness : A case of serpentine pavilion project.” Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, vol. 22, no. 1, 10 Jan. 2022, pp. 84–95, https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2021.2024197. 

2) Riza, Müge, et al. “City branding and identity.” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 35, 2012, pp. 293–300, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.02.091.

3) Lang, Ruth. “‘Some Buildings Are Created Icons, Some Achieve Iconicity, Some Have Iconicity Thrust upon Them.’” Architectural Review, 24 July 2020, www.architectural-review.com/essays/books/some-buildings-are-created-icons-some-achieve-iconicity-some-have-iconicity-thrust-upon-them. 

4) Kwon, Miwon. One Place after Another, 2002, https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/5138.001.0001. 

5) Marche, Jean La, and Bernard Tschumi. “Architecture and disjunction.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), vol. 49, no. 2, Nov. 1995, pp. 139–149, https://doi.org/10.2307/1425404.

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