Abstract
In the early 1920s, the first generation of Korean architects educated under the Japanese Government-General of Korea, emerged in the Korean colonial space. One of these architects, Kil-Ryong Park (1898-1943), being influenced by the theory of architectural evolutionism prevalent among contemporary Japanese architects residing in Korea as well as the environmental-determinism-influenced Japanese understanding of the development of Korean minka (vernacular housing), focused his attention on traditional Korean housing from the early 1920s. The paper analyzes how he came up with his own perspective on Korean housing reformation, which was strongly influenced by his experiential knowledge of Korean living customs and their regional characteristics, such as the effects of climate and natural environments. Following the Romantic sense of modernity, described by Octavio Paz as ″a tradition against itself″ (Paz, 1974)1, the paper illustrates an alternative way to understand Korean architectural modernity during the colonial period, an understanding that differs from the current stylistic discussions on the subject.
