Seoul MetropolitanDong-daemun Library

Status : Competition | Year: 2023 |Type: Civic & Public Buildings

Libraries traditionally and regarding their fundamental purposes have been a prison of books. They stood as a stronghold for books, safeguarded by librarians who acted as its protectors. As alternative means of accessing and saving information arose in less than a century, libraries have found themselves under threat as uncontrolled accessibility appears to signify a loss of authority, profundity, and tradition. In response, the libraries have adopted a moralistic tone, asserting their superiority in social missions and responsibilities. But rather than reinventing or modernizing the traditional forms, new libraries merely repackage it in a different manner. The Public’s fundamental quality is being free (no payment). Nowadays though public can be privately owned and while implying welcome, actually charge you. Therefore, we can say that libraries are the last free public places left. In Korea, the Public can be defined different from what people perceive and experience in other parts of the world.

In the past, the main roads were public in the sense that they were used for public display of power, leading to the royal palace, a space oriented to being seen by other people, thus a space for controlled behavior. On another level, The Public was this smaller-sized mode of collective life, being experienced within familial walls in traditional Korean houses is the internal courtyard (madang). After 1945, and as urbanization hit Korean cities, the traditional houses were replaced by vertical houses with no courtyards and even less private space. That was the beginning of Bang culture, an unintended by-product of the country's rapid modernization, the courtyard and its social role got pushed out from the private domain of the house into the public realm. These changes have been accompanied by vast technological advancement and inventions that have changed our expectations regarding physical spaces. Now that we can store a great amount of data and access them from anyplace, we can use virtual conference rooms and clubs, we can read books on our smartphones, laptops, iPads, book readers, etc. That is why we believe nowadays public libraries can and must be libraries and a lot more. Unless the library transforms itself into a full-service community service, forming a coexistence between what a traditional library would offer, a library in digital era, a place to relax and read, and even a place to create. Our goal is to redefine library as a multipurpose public facility not exclusively known as an information center. These days, the erosion of social media and different forms of online contents such as podcasts, vlogs on YouTube, User-generated content (UGC) in apps like Instagram…, can’t be denied. everyone can be a content creator. Many people love doing it but do not have the resources to start. Many do it as a job. With that in mind we decided to add a new section to this new library and that’s the “Bang 방”. The Bang is a multipurpose zone with rooms in different scales that users can privately use for content creation. These rooms will be equipped with the required tools and gadgets.