Seeing the photos of the Korean Pavilion at Shanghai World Expo blew me away! The pavilion was designed by Korean architectural firm, Mass Studies with the theme of ‘convergence’ in mind. It’s an amalgamation of ‘sign’ (Korean written language) and ‘space’: signs become spaces, and spaces become signs.
The exterior of the building is made up of 3 dimensional sculptures of the Korean alphabets, Hangul. The positive and negative spaces created by the geometric shapes of the letters invite the audience to interact with the space of the pavilion as well as the system of signs, the language of Korea. What better way to introduce Korea than with the language of Korea itself?
Seeing this building reminded me of the Upcycled Street Banner Bags that we introduced from Korea. The overwhelming popularity of the bags surprised us at first but it’s easy to see the universal appeal and beauty one finds in language, the geometry of lines and spaces.
