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Words to spaces

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Words to spaces

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WORDS TO SPACES

by

Lois Narae Lee

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)

August 2014

Copyright 2014 Lois Narae Lee
i

To Halmoni

ii

Table of Contents

Abstract

........................ iii
PART I
THE PAST | My Grandmother’s Story

........................ 1
PART II
THE PRESENT | My Story

........................ 13
PART III
THE FUTURE | An Architectural Vision for the DMZ

........................ 20
PART IV
CONCLUSION

........................ 25
References

........................ 28

iii

ABSTRACT

How does journalism inform architecture? And how can written stories about real people and events
create experiential stories of space? Instead of using quantitative facts to draw lines of constraints and
foundation on a map as a catalyst of design, I look in this thesis at stories and information that draw their
own maps. The stories’ physical and invisible, shared and personal, macro and micro connections, in turn,
form the architecture in space.

I see a relationship between architects and journalists. Both are storytellers. The architect designs the
journey whereas the journalist writes about a journey. This thesis explores the balance between building
sentences and building spaces by focusing on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a historical and
present border that divides and ultimately connects. As you will see, it also provides an autobiographical
connection that explains my interest in lines and borders, visible and invisible—border as dynamic spatial
opportunities connecting and separating complex boundaries layered over time.

1

PART I
THE PAST | My Grandmother’s Story

I sat down with my mother in February 2014, and heard for the first time in my life stories about her
parents, stories that radically changed my perspective and understanding of Korea and the DMZ. The
conversation was held in Korean. Listening, I began to look at the relationship between architecture and
journalism in a new way. Things became clear. The biographical material unearthed why I have always
felt particularly connected to borders and a country 6000 miles away that I had visited once, the summer
before I started college. This thesis provides the first time my family’s stories have been documented and
will be shared, in writing and in English. Out of them comes my vision, as a future architect, for
designing a built experience on the Korean DMZ. The thesis is told in sections of past, present and future.

2

Figure 1 The Lee family tree
3
The division and war in Korea marked different beginnings for families in Korea and shaped distinctive
stories. And this is the story of Bu-Jun Jung, my maternal grandmother (or Halmoni), whose story was
shaped directly by the division and the Korean War.

Halmoni was born in 1918 into a Christian aristocratic yang-ban family. She was also born into Japanese
Imperialism (1910-1945), or the Ilje Period along what now lies along the DMZ in Cheorwon, a rich
farmland county in Gangwon Province.

Practicing the Korean culture was forbidden; the Japanese issued a policy to strip the culture and the
national identity from the Korean people. Every thing and person in Korea was forced to be something
they were not. Koreans were forced to lead Japanese lives and practice Japanese culture in their own
country. Halmoni’s native language was forbidden. Her grade school teacher was Korean, but the classes
were taught only in Japanese. And every morning, Halmoni and her sisters woke up to worship the
Japanese emperor and the gods facing the East. But in secrecy, her and her sisters attended church
services—disguised as family gatherings—in a neighbor’s home late at night.

At age 15, Halmoni, met Jae-Bong Lee, my maternal grandfather (or Harabuji) through a village cupid,
the meppa, an old lady who would spread the news of bachelors and bachelorettes in town.

Harabuji was also from Cheorwon, born in 1919. In fact, his father, Hak-bong Lee, was the county
headman of Cheorwon.

16-year-old Halmoni and 15-year-old Harabuji tied the knot in 1934. Shortly after, Harabuji left for
college in Seoul to study electrical engineering while Halmoni stayed in Cheorwon with her in-laws. And
three years later, their first son In-Kyu was born.

4
Korea was still under Japanese rule at the time. Many Koreans were forced to work in Japanese-owned
factories. Young Korean men were drafted as soldiers and sent to the frontlines of war while thousands of
young Korean women were drafted as sexual slaves for the Japanese soldiers.
1

Harabuji was no exception. He, too, worked under a Japanese employer for a company based in the
bustling industrial town Won-San, in what is now North Korea, that built power transmission plants all
over the Korean Peninsula.

Halmoni and Harabuji welcomed their first daughter, Yun-hwa in 1941 (who later changed her named to
Soo-Jung). And in January of 1945, had their second son, Sung-kyu.

In the same year, on August 15, the Japanese surrendered to the Allied Forces, marking the end of World
War II and the end of the Ilje Period in Korea.

The Japanese in Korea scrambled to return to Japan. Harabuji’s Japanese boss, fearful of not making it
back to Japan safely, reached out to Harabuji, and asked him to help make his move to Japan.

They had a different relationship than what a relationship between a Korean and Japanese was supposed
to be like. Though his boss was his superior, as Harabuji was packing his boss’ belongings, he couldn’t
hold in his excitement and joy for the end of Japanese rule in Korea. He danced uncontrollably as he was
putting things away.

1
Asia for Educators, “20
th
Century: Korea as a Colony of Japan, 1910-1945,” Columbia University, 2009, accessed February 24,
2014, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/kp_koreaimperialism.htm.
5
“Lee-Sang (or Mr. Lee)! I know you’re happy but can you please just hold for a second? I need to get out
of here!!” My mother imitated Harabuji’s dancing just as Halmoni had imitated when she told the story to
my mother.

The relationship between Harabuji and his boss was unbelievable to me. My perceptions changed. While
some Koreans may only have horrendous memories and stories to tell of the Japanese, this story of
Harabuji and his boss filled a void in my understanding of the Japanese rule over Korea that I never
imagined, with an ounce of comedy. This memory, which had been passed down from Halmoni, to my
mother, to me, widened the lens to see the vastness of everyday life, perceptions and views of Korea
under Japanese rule. The line between the Japanese and the Koreans was blurry. Just as there were
immoral and improbable Japanese nationalists, there were also those who weren’t, like Harabuji’s boss.

Korea was divided at the 38
th
parallel into United States and Soviet “zones of influence,”

as a “temporary
military expediency”

even before Japan surrendered and fled Korea.
2
This temporary line was drawn as
part of Allied military plans to designate surrender zones and stop Japan during the war.
But the Americans and Soviets “failed to reach an agreement on a unified Korean government.”
3

Eventually, two separate governments were established three years after the end of WWII in 1948—the
Republic of Korea, the American zone; and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Soviet zone.
4

And despite its original purpose, this division along the 38
th
parallel still remains 69 years later.
5

2
Richard J.H. Johnston, "Division of Korea Started in 1945 as Part of War Plan to Beat Japan." New York Times (1923-Current
File), June 26, 1950.
3
Asia for Educators, 2009.
4
Ibid.
5
Johnston, 1950.
6
Though the border was drawn in 1948, it was not strict and understood as it is now. The division was
implied but Koreans were able travel freely through the 38
th
parallel.

The border ran through the middle of Cheorwon, one of two cities in the peninsula that remains divided
by the border. One step to the north was technically North Korea, and one step to the south, South Korea.
But people, especially from counties divided by the invisible line were left in confusion. Halmoni and her
in-laws resided in southern Cheorwon; but her younger brother and parents resided in northern Cheorwon.

Figure 2 The border runs through Cheorwon

With the establishment of a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, communism was already practiced
in the North. People who did not agree with the government were often killed by members of the
government. Furthermore, wealth was stripped from aristocratic families, including Halmoni’s. Her
parents were killed and her younger brother was rumored to have been imprisoned by the “North”
Koreans.

7
After hearing about her brother, Halmoni set out to look for him carrying her youngest child, Eun-kyu on
her back, across Cheorwon in 1949. Eun-kyu was just an infant, born late in 1948. Halmoni had to take
Eun-kyu to breastfeed him throughout the day, and left the rest of her children—In-kyu, Soo-Jung, and
Sung-kyu—under the care of her in-laws and neighbors.

Throughout her trek, she would desperately stop passersby and ask if they had any information regarding
her brother whom she believed was alive and well. At the end of the day, walking distances from one
prison to the next, she arrived at a prison whose people knew the whereabouts of her brother.

Her brother, like her parents, had been shot and killed.

With a heavy heart full of guilt, remorse and confusion, Halmoni returned home.

My mother recalled the day Halmoni had shared this story with her. Even decades later, as she told the
story, Halmoni’s eyes were full of tears as she was reminded by the memories of hearing about her
brother when she finally reached the prison that knew of his whereabouts. It took me a while to grasp the
extent of her story. And then the story came alive in front of my mind’s eye as the words seeped in.
Halmoni, very petite, standing a mere four feet eight inches, walked, with my uncle Eun-kyu on her back,
about the distance from my home in Rosemead to Downtown Los Angeles, a 20-minute drive on the
freeway. And when she got there, she was told her brother had been shot.

Halmoni and the rest of the Lee family were living normal, busy lives up until North Korean forces
unexpectedly invaded the South on June 25, 1950, marking the beginning of the Korean War. American
forces supported the South, and this time, the Chinese supported the North.

8
Located in the center of the Korean peninsula, Cheorwon was a battlefield divided down the middle by
the frontline of war. The border between the Koreas wavered throughout the war. One day, villages along
the border would be South Korean land; the next day they would belong to North Korea. Borders changed
daily.

When the war broke out, Halmoni and her family, like many other families, moved further south to find
refuge in Busan, South Korea.

During the time, to avoid the draft, men 18 to 25 years of age hid in the mountains or in huge empty jars
(jang-dok) used to store kimchi. Before modern refrigerators, the traditional household refrigerator was
the outdoors, the courtyard. These clay jang-dok containers in all shapes and sizes take a good portion of
the courtyard real estate. They hold not only a year’s supply of kimchi, but also other fermented dishes
and sauces as well including soy sauce, soybean paste, and red chili paste. The mothers and wives of
these hiding men would secretly deliver meals to these earthenware jars throughout the day. They would
hide food under their skirts, knock on the jang-dok lids, pry them slightly open and slide the food in.

Oldest son, In-kyu was 13 at the time of the war and 16 when it ended, just shy of the age for being
drafted into the Korean Army. Many draft-age Korean boys often dodged their predicament by playing a
desperate, nail-biting, and claustrophobic game of hide-and-seek. But many others hid, too. They hid to
protect themselves during the war. Even though he was too young for the draft, In-kyu and his male
cousins hid in small holes dug in the ground. There, they’d cover themselves with dark worn blankets and
wait until the sound of war and soldiers moved to a distance.

When families hid altogether, it raised the chances of getting hit and dying altogether, so my mother told
me they often scattered into smaller groups. One day in 1950, a grenade hit just a step away from In-kyu’s
small, crowded haven. But he and his cousins survived.
9

The war ended three years later with the 1953 Korean War Armistice and cost over 2.5 million lives.
6
In
the end, Korea was still divided but more hostile and separate.

Halmoni and Harabuji couldn’t return to their go-hyang or hometown of Cheorwon, because of the
unclear state of the border after the war. Instead, they moved the family to Seoul for job opportunities and
their children’s education. Today, much of Cheorwon remains in ruins and isolated from the rapid
developments in the thriving cities.

Even though she was born into a wealthy elite family, Halmoni had to start with nothing in South Korea.
The North swallowed whole the lives of her brother and parents as well her aristocratic background.

Just as Halmoni was left with nothing, Korea, too, was left to start from bottom, up. And the end of the
war marked a period of reconstruction in South Korea.

With his electrical engineering background, Harabuji took part in a number of projects over many years
after the war to help reconstruct South Korea. He worked on developing freeways and infrastructure in
the new Seoul.

Meanwhile, In-Kyu attended medical school. And in 1958, the Lee family’s youngest, Yun Hi (my
mother) was born.

6
Allan R. Millet, “Korean War (1950-53),” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2013, accessed February 22, 2014,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322419/Korean-War.

10
Soo-Jung found a job and worked as an illustrator for a publication company, where she met her husband
Young-Moo. They married in 1964.

In-kyu moved to the states in 1967, after graduating from medical school and completing his 24 months
of required military service.

Eun-kyu, the third son, compiled his own portfolio without any art instruction and was accepted to the
prestigious College of Fine Arts at Hongik University. However, he was unable to complete his studies
because of the lack of financial support from his father.

Though Harabuji made a lot of money because he was part of the redevelopment of the country, he was
inept in managing his money. Ultimately, his family struggled.

Harabuji died suddenly due to high blood pressure at a young age of 54 in 1973. He left nothing for
Halmoni and her five children. My mother was 15.

Halmoni, again, had to start with nothing.

Five years after his father’s death in 1978, Sung-Kyu died at an early age of 33 due to respiratory
tuberculosis he contracted during the war, leaving behind his wife and two sons, four and two at the time.
South Korea was pained by poverty after the war, and the limited medical treatment led to widespread
diseases such as tuberculosis. About 70 percent of the total population of South Korea had been exposed
to tuberculosis after the war.
7

7
Seung Hyun Suh, “TB Cases in Korea,” The Kaist Herald, November 19, 2013,
http://herald.kaist.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=725.
11
And in 1982 after eight years of stroke complications, Young-moo died leaving his wife Soo-Jung with
his son and daughter, 17 and 15 at the time.

Life was difficult to get by in Korea for Halmoni, Soo-Jung, Eun-Kyu, and Yun-Hi as they had to
overcome Harabuji’s sudden death, and both Sung-Kyu’s and Young-Moo’s deaths and medical bills.

Though Eun-Kyu’s artistic talent was recognized in Korea, his career choices were limited and he
believed he could find opportunity in America like his brother, In-Kyu, who has US citizenship. In time,
In-Kyu extended an invitation to come, and Eun-kyu immigrated.

Meanwhile, back in Korea, Halmoni and Yun-Hi lived together in a small basement room, just big
enough for the two to lie on the floor. After graduating high school, Yun-Hi (my mother) volunteered at
an orphanage. With a year of volunteer work, she was licensed to teach pre-school and kindergarten
students. Yun-Hi supported herself and mother with the little money she made.

When life started to become more steady and routine, Yun-Hi considered attending college; she imagined
herself working during the day and attending classes at night. But in 1984, these plans for college were
put on hold when she was introduced to Joon-Chul, my father, and decided on marriage.

On March 22, 1986, Yun-Hi and Halmoni immigrated to Los Angeles, California crossing yet another
boundary. And the wedding took place a week later. Halmoni stayed with Eun-Kyu’s family. On April 5,
Yun-Hi and Joon-Chul drove Halmoni to In-Kyu’s home in Fresno en route to a trip to Yosemite.
Halmoni traveled from Los Angeles to Yosemite dressed in her favorite baby blue traditional Korean han-
bok. She was instantly a celebrity for the locals, tourists, and even the blue jays, as they would surround
her. Her everyday outfit was a never-before-seen costume to others. Several people photographed her and
even asked to take a photograph with her. This was my mother’s last memory of Halmoni.
12

After their short trip, Yun-Hi moved in with Joon-Chul’s family—his mother, father, grandmother and
youngest brother all in a three bedroom, two bathroom home—in Rosemead, CA, and Halmoni stayed in
Fresno with In-Kyu and his wife, Han-Soo.

While Yun-Hi was busy adapting to and attending to her in-laws and their needs, Halmoni spent her time
babysitting Han-Soo’s niece to make small change to send to her widowed daughter, Soo-Jung.

Two short months later on May 12, 1986, Halmoni passed away suddenly. She was 68.

13

PART II
THE PRESENT | My Story

Halmoni’s stories were shaped and informed by three main borders—between the Japanese and Koreans,
between North and South Korea, and Korea and America.

My first realization of these borders was not, however, through my grandmother’s story but rather
through pictures of the broken family and soldiers in blood and sweat in my high school textbooks. The
North was always so close in conversation with my family and other Korean Americans, like myself. But it
was a land and culture that was distant, distant because it had to be.

14
When I think of the North, I immediately recall images of the first inter-Korea family reunions.
8
These
reunions started in 2000 as an annual event during the Chu-seok holiday (Lunar Harvest Festival,
equivalent to Thanksgiving in the US) where the Korean families reunite with their relatives and loved
ones who were left behind in the North at the end of the Korean War after over 50 years of separation.
The images depicted tears racing down the wrinkles on the lean faces of the North Koreans and their
hands reaching far out of the small bus windows as they separate again, after a three-day long reunion.

Why did these Koreans have to say goodbye? Why couldn’t the three days just be days of celebration and
feasting like Thanksgiving in the states, where people travel all across the world to see loved ones and go
back to their individuals lives with smiles, cheers, and a full stomach afterwards? Why was there so much
grief, longing, and emptiness to this Korean family who lives just a step away on the other side?

The summer before college, I took my first trip to South Korea as an adult. (My very first trip there was at
the age of one.) Like any Korean-American family’s first visit to Korea, my trip was planned by Miss
Kim, a heavily accented tour guide. It was one of those lets-cram-everything-we-can-see-in-one-week
tours. I was on a tight schedule for that week. Wake-up calls were made at six, breakfast was served at
seven, and the bus left every morning at eight. In one day we would visit two cities and within those cities
experience at least four different destinations, six if you count lunch and dinner stops.

It was the last day of the routine boot camp-like week. Thoughts that flooded my head that morning were,
“Is this over yet?” “Did…we see all of Korea yet?” “Are you going to give me time to process everything
you’re showing me, Miss Kim?” “Can I sleep in?” and “Ugh.”

8
Hae-in Hong, Chang-Gil Kim, and Ho-Young Kim, “Korean family reunions,” Reuters, 2010,
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTXU7J2.
15
After ranting up a storm in my sleep on my way to what was the only destination that day, we arrived. In
huge white block letters, the characters 통(Tong) 일 (Il) screamed at me from the hills in my view. I was
still bitter at that point and mumbling how ugly the typeface was. Soldiers and tanks also came into my
view with the undulating hills still visible in the background. I was confused. I asked my mom what tong-
il meant. I was rapidly building my Korean vocabulary for six days but had never seen those characters
together. She said, “unification.” I was at the Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ.

Figure 3 The DMZ divides the two Koreas

The DMZ is the buffer zone along the 38
th
parallel between the two Koreas, spanning 448 km (248 km on
land, 200 km on sea)
9
, established in 1953 by the armistice that ended the Korean War at the time.
Technically, the Koreas are still at war. The DMZ has become a popular tourist site because it’s the only
place where visitors can catch a glimpse of the North, safely.

9
The DMZ Tour Course Guidebook, “From the DMZ to the PLZ,” Korea Tourism Organization, May 2009,
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/upload/itis/enu/dmz_guide_eng.pdf.
16

I knew what it was; I knew what I was looking at. I knew who was on the other side. But I was
completely unaware of the flood of emotions that would occur over the two hours that we had allotted
there. Prior to my trip back to my roots, the DMZ was just a line on the map, a sad and striking one. But
something in my heart wrenched upon getting off the bus. I felt uneasy. I felt the tension. And I was
broken. I was guilty for not caring before, for not understanding the extent of the line, and for not having
the power to do something about it.

My mother, father, sister, brother and I stood a foot away from one another, facing the north on the long
and linear wooden platform, marked by a row of telescopes separated every three feet. We stayed still for
the first hour, coming to terms with the unexpected emotional flurry. Crying. We would turn and make
eye contact with each other. And we would smile, tears even more uncontrollably rolling down our
cheeks. We knew exactly how each of us was feeling. We didn’t have an explanation, but it was a
moment we all shared and understood.

A barbed fence and a whole lot of warning signs mark the DMZ. In the distance, your eyes are drawn to
the dry landscape, the barren roads and camouflaged watchtowers.

A line doesn’t have to be physical to be seen. Your eyes are constantly creating lines, or connections
between things. When a physical line is processed through the eyes, your eyes are not forced to see just
that one line, rather your eyes have extended the line. But at the DMZ, the lines stopped. The lines didn’t
dance, they didn’t move. They were strict and they were static.

That day, my eyes stopped and penetrated deep into the distance. I looked over my head. Birds flew from
the south to the north, and back again. The same wind that bustled between my fingers bustled between
the dry foliage in the field a few feet to the north. I breathed the same air as the other Koreans. And I
17
thought, we both have aspirations and daily obstacles, we strive to live and we’re scared of death. We’re
humans but we’re never able to see or communicate with each other even in this era of technology. Why?

To notice something is perhaps the first step to begin caring for something. By looking beyond the
demarcation line to what lay ahead in the North, I connected to something. This line of separation and
rigid division was actually reconnecting the South to the North. While North Korea sees the DMZ as a
symbol of hatred, South Korea sees the DMZ as a symbol of tragedy and hope for reunification.

At the time I was there at the DMZ, I didn’t know why I felt connected to this line other than the fact that
I was Korean. It wasn’t until I heard my grandmother’s story from my mother that I understood little of
why I felt so confused, at home, grateful, and broken all at the same time.

The DMZ is a large part of me, and Koreans in general. It’s a scar on the physical topography, one that
had been unnoticed, but engraved in my mind and my heart through the stories of my family. The scar
marks my homeland—somewhere to visit, again and again. It’s where I feel comfortable. Where I feel a
connection when it’s never expected. It’s a feeling I just can’t explain, maybe a feeling that can’t even
been understood by everyone. But, I have realized, more so lately with the ongoing events in North Korea
that my homeland is actually a place of conflict. Though I am an American citizen, who has resided in the
Los Angeles County for my entire life, my homeland is Korea. It’s where my roots are, what sets me
apart, and a place that I can connect over with my family.

This connection is especially prevalent when my family nervously huddles around the television to watch
Yu-na Kim skate in the Olympic Winter Games and to cheer on the South Korean soccer team during the
World Cup, even when broadcasted only in Spanish on the Telemundo channel at four in the morning.
Maybe this connection developed from growing up under Korean immigrant parents who have
experienced the reconstruction of the entire nation of South Korea, from poverty-stricken to leading
18
economic country? Athletes such as Yu-na, politicians such as UN Secretary General Ki-Moon Ban, and
brands such as Samsung emerged from a country so small that broke out of poverty only 60 years ago.

In retrospect, my father was born in 1953. He’s as old as South Korea. The number of buildings that have
been erected, the moments of fame that have been celebrated, and all the rapid developments that
happened in my father’s lifetime astonish me. I had always rolled my eyes whenever my father went off,
“you know, when I was your age…” But now, I think I know. I know little of what my parents’
generation might have endured from a country lacking so many resources to one now that has become its
own thriving resource of talent, research and competency.

The DMZ, however, is a tourist attraction that isn’t truly realized by all the visitors, as it is to those who
have a connection to the border and the Korean history, like myself. Upon experiencing the DMZ through
the viewing deck, our allotted time was up so my family and I walked outside toward the bus we arrived
in, in a large parking lot lined by rows after rows of buses alike. The entrance was rather cheerful, loud
and full of excitement, different from the solitary, quiet and serious nature of the interior glass structure
and the platform outside. Souvenir shops, colorful pink and purple human-scale block letters “D” “M”
and “Z”, and a display of real army tanks and soldiers decorate the entryway. The souvenir shops carry
DMZ branded T-shirts, candies, baseball caps, key chains and other goods that seem to celebrate and
contradict the dense environment of the border. The tourists gather around and take photographs leaning
on the block letters, posing as if it were an amusement park. Groups crowd the soldiers guarding the tanks
and pose with the celebrity-like army men in uniform and dark reflective sunglasses for photographs.

19
A few miles south, visitors can find an 18-ride children’s DMZ theme park that looks onto North Korea
named Pyeong Hwa Land (or Peace Land).
10

The DMZ is rooted and exists with stories such as Halmoni’s, but there isn’t a place for these stories to be
shared along the border with the tourist trap-like nature of the current DMZ. The tourists are detached
from the representational line that has defined Korea and where it stands today as two separate entities.
But these separate entities are actually connected by these stories. Both people with and without stories
come to the border but there isn’t a space for these stories to live, where visitors that come without stories
can realize the depth of this heavily fortified line drawn before them through the shared stories.

10
Jon Rabiroff, “Amid fun and games on the DMZ, is the reunification message lost?” Stars and Stripes, July 3, 2010,
http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/korea/amid-fun-and-games-on-the-dmz-is-the-reunification-message-lost-1.109808.
20

PART III
THE FUTURE | An Architectural Vision for the DMZ

My mother grew up drawing, listening to and making music, and creating things with her older siblings.
When she was my age, my mother would sew fun outfits with Halmoni, who knit sweaters of all shapes
and sizes (even in the dark, when my mother would sleep on her lap) and sewed most of the outfits my
mother and her siblings wore growing up. I, too, grew up drawing, listening to and making music, and
creating things with my older sister and younger brother. My mother, too, sewed. She made the most
detailed dresses and blankets for my dolls.

I was brought up being allowed to create anything with anything at home from dry pasta to wet sand,
from old sheets to everyday postage stamps. I would create daily.

Everything I created had a story and every detail had a reason.

21
I have designed a shared experience, an experience for people without the connection to feel the
division—a platform for the story of the DMZ as told by those affected, experienced by those both
affected and unaffected.

This project redefines border as an opportunity for spatial experience, creating a new ecology that exists
among and between many boundaries—historical, cultural, and political, external and internal.

Two interlocking volumes serve as armatures for the stories. These volumes grow and peel from the
ground, delicately taking the nature and language of the linearity of the border from a birds’ eye, plan
view. The subtle nature blurs the distinction between built architecture and landscape.

The main core serves as a linear exhibit space displaying a timeline of events from past, present and
future of the division. The second volume is an extension of the buffer zone in the form of an occupiable
green roof that peels from the ground of South Korean land and extends in a cantilevering gesture over
the core volume towards the buffer zone and North Korea.

Though the buffer zone, guarded by a million soldiers on each side, is desolate of human life and human
interaction, wildlife has been conserved.

The DMZ is home to a range of diverse ecosystems
11
that have
been preserved over the years, at it remains a place untouched by human hands and the industrial
revolution, and separate from the polluted, busy cities. This four-kilometer-wide greenbelt is the sole
“shared space” between North and South Korea.

This walkable roof park space curves inward to from walls and drops down to form the different levels to
walk on in the interior and two masses are integrated to read as one.

11
The DMZ Tour Course Guidebook, 2009.
22

There are three different ways to enter the space—from either end of the historical timeline exhibit space
or from the extension of the buffer zone that touches the ground and peels up to form the roof.

At ground level, an elegant, linear ramp brings visitors down into the high-ceiling main core, below grade
from either side. Visitors enter from the future moving back to the past, or through past to the future.

From this core that displays the external history of Korea, internal stories emerge, branch off, and move
away from the volume.

The history of the peninsula and border are interwoven with the stories of the people, stories told through
various mediums that best depict them. The tall ceiling begins to compress as a visitor walks through a
single story pathway. The space becomes more intimate, meant for reflection and solitude.

The storyline progresses with the physical movement through space on a series of ramps. When different
storylines have parallel experiences, the singular pathways intersect, creating a moment of shared
experience. The visitor can either stay on the path started, or move onto the new paths when they
intersect. The movement throughout stories is fluid with the physical interwoven network of ramps and
stairways that diverge and converge; the frequency of intersections is based on the timeline in plan.

As the story comes to an end, and directs back to the core, the ceiling gradually grows taller. Throughout
the space, with the density and scale of the stories, the scale and the lighting of the emerging paths vary.

There is a continuous dialogue between space and story.

23
Moreover, from my experience at the DMZ, I felt uneasy looking into the North with the understanding
that someone was looking at me from the other side. As a result, the design delves into the idea of
voyeurism—the act of looking in without being watched, and the idea of being watched without knowing
that you’re being watched.

Voyeurism is materialized into the design as a series of gradients—gradients of light and shadow, spatial
conditions, transparency, and materials or finishes—throughout the network of paths. Paths are exposed
among visitors as well as exposed to the watchful eyes of the North Korean soldiers at different moments
moving through space. Paths move inside and outside, completely opaque at moments and completely
transparent.

Unconventional, hidden watchtowers are embedded within the architecture, while there are also more
conventional and exterior towers that speak the language of the existing lookouts.

This experience explores the notions: you v. them; public v. private; and being watched v. watching.

The architecture, itself, embodies the idea of connection and division, simultaneously. And the stories
expose lives separate from the division but internally and constantly affected and attached to it, just as I
have felt when I was on the viewing deck.

This built environment can be placed anywhere along the DMZ, as it is meant to move and be shared in
different areas with different stories over time. Moreover, there are pathways void of stories. These void
paths are platforms for visitors to add to the experience and tell their own stories.

24
Korea is also known as Han-guk—Nam-han (South Korea) and Book-han (North Korea). The term comes
from han, meaning “the great one” and guk meaning “country” or “nation”. Together, Han-guk means the
great nation. But han can be written as different characters that sound the same with different meanings—
“one” and “grief.” Is han-guk really a great nation? Isn’t it just a divided one? Why can’t it be one
nation? And why does nation of grief sound more relevant?

Han, “grief,” is meant to be solved. By old Korean proverbs, once han is solved, happiness is achieved.
Architects are always searching for problems, and solving them. Happiness can be created through
design. Han is an existing condition along the DMZ but, can han be solved through design?

25

PART IV
CONCLUSION

Every day in summer around four in the afternoon my sister and I would race to the garage, grab our
jumbo pastel chalk bucket and head out to the asphalt driveway. We would turn back-to-back and sit on
the floor each with a piece of chalk in hand. My sister would start. “Draw a square, then draw two
smaller squares, draw a triangle. Okay, now draw two squiggly lines, draw a rectangle, draw a circle,
and draw four lines.” Then, we would jump up, turn around and exhibit our sidewalk masterpieces.

Mine looked nothing like my sister’s.

Words translate differently as space. The same words or ideas build different spaces, different forms, and
different lines, which reflect different contexts and imaginations. But ultimately words can build spaces;
spaces can be translated into words.

26

Things begin to mean different things once I’m given context, and especially when I become the context.
I can hear, see, smell, or touch the same thing, but it’ll mean something different for each individual.

Halmoni’s story built Korea for me. And Korea, as a place, has been built in my own words on the
context and epiphanies of autobiography.

This thesis is a mere expression of the Korea I know. The Korea that I know, feel, hate, love and see is
painted, concretized and filtered through my family’s story, my personal story and the shared stories.

Through this thesis I have articulated a design out of a collection of true stories, mapping out the words in
space as a network, a built system of spaces.

The words of these stories are manifested in the border that exists and the one I perceive, a border that
separates and one that connects. And the DMZ, as a place, is built through this complex network of
spaces on the context and experiences of a collection of narratives such as my own.

Telling an autobiography revealed the problem—the detachment of people from the DMZ and my
personal detachment from my family lineage. The border limits my ability to know and visually see and
express so much more of my family and the ecologies of where their stories come from. And the existing
built environment of the DMZ limits stories to emerge from the border they live in for firsthand and true
realizations of the DMZ to be made.

27
The problem is solved and executed through architecture, realizing border as space only in the form of a
line. The borderline exists for the people; people don’t exist for the line. And the architecture becomes the
platform for these stories of people, which I understand as the real construct of the DMZ, to be exposed.

Words build sentences, sentences build paragraphs, and paragraphs build stories.

Stories are built just as buildings are.

28

References

Asia for Educators. 20th Century: Korea as a Colony of Japan, 1910-1945. Columbia
University. 2009. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/main_pop/kpct/kp_koreaimperialism.htm.
(accessed February 24, 2014).
Hong, Hae-in, Chang-Gil Kim, and Ho-Young Kim. Korean family reunions. 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTXU7J2. (accessed December
10, 2013).
Johnston, Richard J.H. Division of Korea Started in 1945 as Part of War Plan to Beat Japan.
June 26, 1950.
Korean Tourism Organization. From the DMZ to the PLZ. May 2009.
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/upload/itis/enu/dmz_guide_eng.pdf.
Millet, Allan R. "Korean War (1950-53)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 2013. (accessed
February 22, 2014).
Rabiroff, Jon. Amid fun and games on the DMZ, is the reunification message lost?". July 3,
2010. http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/korea/amid-fun-and-games-on-the-dmz-is-the-
reunification-message-lost-1.109808. .
Suh, Seung Hyun. TB Cases in Korea. November 19, 2013.
http://herald.kaist.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=725.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract How does journalism inform architecture? And how can written stories about real people and events create experiential stories of space? Instead of using quantitative facts to draw lines of constraints and foundation on a map as a catalyst of design, I look in this thesis at stories and information that draw their own maps. The stories' physical and invisible, shared and personal, macro and micro connections, in turn, form the architecture in space. ❧ I see a relationship between architects and journalists. Both are storytellers. The architect designs the journey whereas the journalist writes about a journey. This thesis explores the balance between building sentences and building spaces by focusing on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a historical and present border that divides and ultimately connects. As you will see, it also provides an autobiographical connection that explains my interest in lines and borders, visible and invisible—border as dynamic spatial opportunities connecting and separating complex boundaries layered over time.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Lee, Lois Narae (author)

Core Title Words to spaces

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 07/07/2014

Defense Date 06/24/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Architecture,Borders,DMZ,Journalism,Korea,North Korea,OAI-PMH Harvest,South Korea

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Lifson, Edward (committee member), Vidar, Jon (committee member)

Creator Email loisnaraelee@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-431723

Unique identifier UC11287073

Identifier etd-LeeLoisNar-2620.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-431723 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-LeeLoisNar-2620.pdf

Dmrecord 431723

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Lee, Lois Narae

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA