What if you were given carte blanche to do anything that you desire? While that may be a dream come true for most, architect Cho Min-suk said, “I refuse to do that project.”

A leading Korean architect and winner of several awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014, Cho was offered just such an opportunity 10 years ago. “Someone with means said, ‘You just make a pure, beautiful place,’” recalled Cho during an interview with The Korea Herald at his office in Itaewon last month.

He turned down the offer.

“There is no function. At that moment I thought, ‘Oh, if I had been given the chance 10 years earlier, I would have been very happy with that opportunity,'” he said. But when the offer was actually made, just showing what he was good at didn’t interest him.

“I have to have a partner to dance with because I’m not a soloist, and architecture, I think, is healthy that way,” he said.

His latest project, “Archipelagic Void,” the 23rd Serpentine Pavilion in London, likewise, is not concerned purely with form. The Serpentine Pavilion project, inaugurated in 2000 with the first pavilion by the late Zaha Hadid, annually selects an architect from around the world who does not have a built project in the UK to design a temporary pavilion at Kensington Gardens, on a plot of land adjacent to the Serpentine Gallery.

Shaped like a star with each spoke an island that connects to a central void, “Archipelagic Void” is designed to be filled -- with sounds, performances and people. The programming for Cho’s pavilion is just as striking as the pavilion itself -- since its opening in June, it has been hosting numerous events and activities, including a performance by acclaimed artist, choreographer and dancer Ahn Eun-me on its opening day.

Art to architecture

Cho grew up surrounded by books on architecture and art and determined early on that he would be an artist. His architect father never pushed him to pursue architecture. That is just as well, Cho recalled with a chuckle, since he would probably have run the other way had he been pushed.

He was studying to go to an arts high school, when a book cover caught his eye, changing his career path. “That was kind of a revelation,” he said. His father told him the building on the cover was Notre-Dame du Haut, a well-known chapel in Ronchamp, France by Le Corbusier.

“It was a very sculptural, striking thing. So I asked my father, ‘Hey, this is what you do?’"

Realizing that architecture could be this way, Cho decided that is what he would do.

From preparing for arts high school, he shifted to the science track in high school and went on to study architecture and architectural engineering at Yonsei University. He earned a master’s degree in architecture at Columbia University. After working for three years in the US, he headed to Rotterdam to join OMA, the firm led by renowned architect Rem Koolhaas. Koolhaas and architect and critic Kenneth Frampton, who wrote the canonical “Modern Architecture: A Critical History,” are two figures who have greatly influenced Cho.

After two and a half years at OMA, he returned to New York in late 1998 where he founded Cho Slade Architecture. He returned to Korea “by accident” in his words and founded Mass Studies in 2003, a growing practice that boasts many internationally recognized built works including Shanghai Expo 2010 Korea Pavilion, Space K Museum and the Won Buddhism Wonnam Temple, among others.

Breakthroughs

“We’ve done 70 or so built buildings now out of more than 200 projects that I have designed. So two-thirds of them have failed competitions or were designed all the way but didn’t get built. One out of three is not that bad because we like to really demonstrate what architecture can be, what is possible through this technique we have,” said Cho.

A lot of projects are turned own because Cho would rather do projects that involve discovering the possibilities or those that result in some positive improvement and “not just perpetuate the machine.”

Getting the commission for the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion is a major breakthrough for Cho. Incidentally, what he counts as his first breakthrough is the Shanghai Expo 2010 Korea Pavilion which won the silver medal.

Cho, whose design process involves discovery and invention, is now interested in things that last. “More and more, I am interested in something that lasts much longer although the reality is that there’s a lot of things that are disposable.”

Cho observed that there are two types of architects -- the guilty and the angry -- and said that he tries not to be either. “My work comes out of joy” he said. “I mean, I come to the office singing."

“Architecture has been my way -- a great way -- to understand the world,” he said. And his motivation is very simple -- to build exciting spaces.