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In Search of Lost Architecture
2026.04.17 Admin Hit 29[In Search of Lost Architecture]
About a century ago from now, Marcel Proust completed his masterpiece “In Search of Lost Time,” a work exchanged for his lifetime. This novel, which poses questions about time, consciousness, and memory, brought about a groundbreaking turning point in the history of 20th-century literature. This new current was not limited to literature alone. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis approached human dreams and desires through a new horizon called the unconscious, and Einstein proposed the theory of relativity that went beyond the existing quantum theory. Picasso, with a new style called Cubism, transformed the flow of Western art history that had remained in the form of representation. The realm of architecture and the city was more fundamentally changing the speed and mode of life. Cities were expanding and transforming anew in order to accept the speed of a new era. New design domains such as railway stations and bridges brought about a new field called engineering, which created considerable tension with the roles and domains that existing architects had occupied. In addition, the new construction method of reinforced concrete proposed by Auguste Perret was heralding a temporal shift in the existing masonry-centered architectural practices. Thereafter, Le Corbusier, through the Domino system, showed what the spirit of the age in architecture is and presented the figure of the architect as an integrator of ideology and technology.
After more than a hundred years have passed, when we reflect on this era now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we are living on the foundation of the engineering and artistic achievements of 100 years ago. Architecture may appear to have evolved infinitely at first glance, but it seems to be only an evolution of construction methods and materials, while its essential processes and roles have not changed greatly. In the Western sense, a traditional architect is a kind of philosopher and mathematician, a profession placed on the extension of the humanities that gathers craftsmen from various fields, divides their domains, and constructs new ideologies. As such, architecture was a profession that integrated and embraced the meaning of the times and formed new discourses. It was a constructor of new ways of life built upon sociological reflection determined by the spirit of the age, and an innovator who realized future values. Our present reality, on the verge of the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is not easy. We are failing to produce new architectural discourses in a changing world, and the ambiguous positioning of architects accumulated so far does not seem to be creating a significant response from the market. This is proof that architects are not being respected as integrators of guilds and leaders of the spirit of the age, and it can be seen as the cold evaluation of the current architects by the market.
In this regard, what we should look at is not architecture as a simple technological or functional achievement, but the essence of architecture as a profession. In other words, integrative architecture does not mean architecture that exists as an individual within a specialized society, but architecture that embraces the spirit of the age and grants a new order to the system of social meaning. In the rapidly changing circumstances of 100 years ago, countless architects must have contemplated the architecture of the future. However, looking back at that period now, 100 years later, we can see that future value ultimately becomes closer the more it approaches the essence. In this sense, we need to once again reflect on the definition of the architect given by Vitruvius. “The architect should be a scholar and a skilled draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with history, fond of philosophy, acquainted with music, knowledgeable in medicine, and also proficient in astronomy and astronomical calculations.”
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Jeonhoon Lee
[This article was commissioned by KIA 40th Anniversary Special Exhibition]