“Haha! What Does This Represent?” “What Do YOU Represent?”

Suh Jaewon and Lee Euihaing don’t make it easy for us. Every step along the way towards rationalising what they are doing, they set traps and diversions in our path. The biggest trap, right up front, is the obvious question their work conjures: ‘Why do they in 2019 still design such postmodern looking buildings?’ And we have to realise that we can only ask such a question if we ourselves are deeply immersed in the postmodernist paradigm; only a postmodernist is concerned about representation and appearance. ‘Are their buildings “ducks” or “decorated sheds”? Do they explicitly reenact a generic Korean multi-family house or do they decorate a multi-family house with an iconography that denotes its purpose within the Korean context?’; ‘Are they being ironic or even sarcastic, or do they actually believe in the language that they use?’ And now an unease begins to creep in: maybe if we try to find an answer to these questions we will come to realise that it is either none of the above or everything at the same time.

Buildings that raise so many questions cannot be explained