Military Style Construction

The myth of the growing middle class was one of the key factors that sustained Korean society during the latter half of the 20th century. The family photo with four brightly smiling faces with the backdrop of a decent job, a thousand square foot apartment, and a mid-size sedan was a picture-perfect representation of the reality of the material affluence created by rapid economic growth. However, at the end of the last century, with the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, cracks started appearing in this image of perfection. On the surface, it did not seem like the crisis would last. A variety of emergency policy measures were issued by the government, and the middle and the lower classes were ready to march on to overcome the national crisis. Subsequently, the real estate market started trending upwards, and it seemed that the middle class myth was restored to its former self.

However, all became clear when the 2008 global financial crisis, originating in the U.S., hit the world. A significant number of the middle class was carrying on as if everything was normal up until that point. At the sudden news from across the Pacific, they started staggering as if they had been dealt a fatal blow. As a result, the internal differentiation of the middle class rapidly commenced, and the apartment, once the defining symbol of the middle class, was demoted to becoming a mere nuisance.

Why did this happen?

First, let us turn our eyes towards the Gangnam area of the mid to late 1970s when a concentration of massive apartment complexes was constructed. A gaze from afar in a helicopter looking over a construction site would be perfect. Looking at these Gangnam apartments of the period from such a bird's-eye view, it is difficult not to see its resemblance to a massive military base. Of course, this sentiment is not new.

The observation that the overarching view of apartment complexes resembled military bases was valid because they were both constructed in a similar fashion. Both shared characteristics that were apparent in the construction process; in the 70s and 80s, during the military regime, the construction of much of these large complexes was conducted as if they were military operations. Within this context, apartment units were approached as standardized blueprints in terms of square footage, construction materials, the complex layout, and their construction schedules. The occupants were just statistics.

If apartments, indeed, were built in a manner comparable to a military operation, what would be the ultimate goal of maintaining such a militant perspective from conception to completion? Could it have been the development of a particular housing model that could then be duplicated on a massive scale in new sections of Seoul and its satellite cities as the economy grew? Could it, moreover, have been the development of a new order in the daily life of the occupants of that model?

One of the phrases that the military regime used frequently during the industrialization period, which led to the construction of these apartments, was "human reform." Contrary to popular belief, the object of this reform was not limited to industrial workers and agricultural producers. Of course, an industrial worker was subjected to realizing the most optimized consumption of physical energy by fusing himself to the machines of the assembly line; an agricultural producer was to be reborn as the pillar of the New Community Movement by equipping himself with an earnest, diligent spirit. However, the middle class that emerged along with the nation’s economic growth, was also a subject of reform. The apartment was where this middle class was reformed into city dwellers with contemporary sensibilities, as if conducting experiments on the new order. As is well-known, this experiment took place through the building of apartment complexes in Gangnam for more than a decade, stretching from the mid-1970s to the late 80s.

Korea Land & Housing Corporation apartment complex under construction, 1976 (National Archives of Korea)

Inside the Frame

Now, let us open the front door and take a peek inside the apartment itself. The living room plays a central role in the resident's acquisition of a contemporary sensibility by allowing the experience of a new day-to-day. The living room positions itself as the space where the lives of family members (who have their own rooms) intersect, and as a space where emotional bonds are formed. In the midst of this process, the living room emerged as the central axis of the interior space. Literary critic Kim Hyeon says the following about the interior space of the 1,000 square feet apartment he lived in during the early 80s:

"In an apartment, an object loses its volume and becomes like a picture that exists as lines on a plane. Everything is laid out on a plane. So, everything falls within sight at a glance. In an apartment, all people as well as objects have no place to hide themselves. Everything is out in the open. However that openness is only superficial; it is not of depth."

According to Kim Hyeon, objects cannot find any place suitable for hiding themselves in the interior space of an apartment. They cannot help but be exposed since there is nowhere to hide. Therefore, a gaze exercises omnipotence, and the space where that power is expressed at its maximum is the living room. The objects in the living room are disarmed meekly, without resistance, by the gaze of the person walking in through the front door, and play the part of a picture that exists as lines on a plane.

What plays an important role here is the window that is open to the balcony, which takes up an entire wall of the living room. This window, instead of displaying a view, is devoted to fulfilling the functions of lighting and ventilation. Of course, it is not difficult to look outside standing at the edge of the balcony while leaning on the railing. However, it is of no use. The surrounding view is far from an open scene; rather, the view is completely blocked off. Other apartment buildings surround it on all sides. Instead, the balcony window becomes a cause of concern for the resident. It is the perfect passage for the anonymous gaze to peek in, in secrecy, from the building on the other side. Tall fences were commonly raised around single family houses. In contrast, in apartments, the role of the fence was relegated to curtains on the balcony window.

The interior space of this cube is sealed air-tight so as to block out the outside gaze. The right to look into this space is given only to those who have rung the bell and entered through the front door. Upon entering, one’s gaze automatically falls on the balcony window in the living room. At this moment, the balcony window functions as a kind of a reference plane that renders the living room in a single glance. Straight lines project out from the four vertices of the reference plane and travel along the edges of the inside corners, partitioning the visual field according to the rules governing a perspective drawing. Subsequently, the gaze over the living room is guided by these straight lines. In other words, as the balcony window produces a sense of depth, the gaze charges toward it.

Though the landscape of the living room was fixed by the frame of perspective, it could not suppress the desire for consumption by the middle class which had just completed "acquiring my own castle." Some tried to decorate the living room with expensive antiques and ornate furniture to show their aristocratic taste; some, unable to withstand the inhuman texture of such artificial materials as concrete and metal, tried to dress their interior space and objects in frills, following trends in interior design; yet others, lamenting that they must live in a gardenless house, created an artificial garden with a variety of plants and ornamental trees in the living room and on the balcony.

Because the beginning of the apartment building age was marked by all manners of trends in interior design that swept through living rooms, some called the situation inside apartments the warehouse of the kitsch. Yet this new middle class had only just acquired their own apartments, and they could not pay attention to such criticisms. The majority of them were entrusted, without much preparation, with the duty of filling the empty frame, and they had yet to acquire the modern sensibility befitting the interior space of the apartments.

In the meantime, the television as object played the role of subduing the chaos in the living room. The television, whose place in a single-family home was originally in the main bedroom, moved out to the living room and achieved a visual balance of the interior space. First of all, by capitalizing on the eye-catching quality of the screen, the television provided the basic frame for composition in the placement of objects. It is the layout of a theater. On one side of the living room was the television, and on the opposite side was the couch.

Next, the television intervened in the logic behind the interior design of individual objects. The new design element of the television, which became widely available with the introduction of color broadcasting in the beginning of the 1980s, played an important role at this stage. The television, once produced in a style resembling wooden furniture, became a black plastic box with a modern look. It reigned over the living room space along with the home stereo system and the videotape player.

In step with such changes, other objects placed in the living room also started changing in relation to the television. Now, the objects obeyed the approach of modern design, form following function, and started finding their places in the interior of the living room frame.

View of the living room of an apartment in Gwacheon, 1991 (Saemikipunmul)

Satellite Cities

As the massive apartment complexes constructed in Gangnam during the 1970s and 80s became established as the model residential arrangement of the middle class, apartment buildings very rapidly began occupying the new urban center of Seoul as well as the new satellite cities in the surrounding area. These Soviet-style concrete buildings were constructed in the areas of Mokdong, Sanggye, Junggye, and Gwacheon during the 80s; they were built in five new satellite cities during the 90s: Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongcheon, Jungdong, and Sanbon. These buildings were claimed as their shares by some of those belonging to the generation born in the 1940s and 60s; this group was raising families and "acquiring my own castle" as opportunities arose. In the 1980s, in the new urban centers of Seoul, the majority of these individuals were able to purchase apartments at the price of $1,300 per 35 square feet; in the new satellite cities, the price was $2,000 per 35 square feet during the 90s. These prices were relatively low, a result of a government housing supply policy built on the village industry policy inspired by Henry Ford.

Some bought their apartments with the money they earned as workers on construction sites in Middle Eastern deserts; some purchased theirs with lump sums saved after years of work; some had theirs bought for them by their parents. A significant number of these buyers were members of the white collar work force before moving into apartments; after their move, they started planning the life of middle class consumers.

Two economic bubbles caused the steep rise in the prices of apartment buildings. One in the mid to late 70s was due to the success of an export-centered economic policy, and the other in the mid to late 80s was due to the three lows—low oil prices, low interest rates, and low dollar-to-yen exchange rate—which gave Korean products a more competitive edge in the world market. In turn, the middle class that owned these apartments enjoyed that much more economic power. It was this economic prosperity that enabled new apartment dwellers to experience the new order in their daily lives and acquire a modern taste and sensibility.

From this perspective, prior to the government-instated regulation policies in the first decade of the new millennium, apartments were a social system that distributed material wealth in favor of the middle class. The sources of this energy—what powered this system that virtually became a substitute for a social welfare system—were the 10-year cycles of high economic growth.

However, the situation changed after the financial crisis of 1997, otherwise known as the IMF Crisis due to the subsequent IMF bailout. The economy staggered; government regulations on real estate grew weaker or were lifted altogether. One thing that did not change, however, was the desire for asset income, a desire that had become familiar to residents after 20 years of apartment ownership. The skyrocketing apartment prices in the first half of the first decade of the new millennium was the result of this desire’s having inflated its own volume using bank loans. Signs that signaled the entry into a low-growth society were all over the economy, but the middle class did not even blink.

Now after 10 years, the era of slow economic growth is unfolding before our very eyes. The bleakest social problems are household debt and the low birth rate. Before the year 2000, the household debt equaled about 10 billion dollars. Before anyone noticed, it crept up to 100 billion. The annual birth rate, which was once 600,000 to 700,000 babies a year, is barely hanging on at 400,000 a year since 2002. The time is coming in which a middle class life, once symbolized by the apartment, can no longer be sustained. Then, will we be able to design a daily life that will be compatible with the era of slow economic growth while we avoid inviting in a bubble economy? It is in this vein that a post-apartment-era housing model must be considered first, even before preparing for the future of a slow growth society. It will not be easy, but overcoming the temptation of pursuing asset income and material affluence will be the first hurdle to overcome.