Earticle

초록

영어

This article claims that architect Rem Koolhaas’ essay “The Generic City” (1995) brings forth a new way of thinking about Asian urbanism, and encourages us to be attentive to sensory dimensions of daily urban experience over the stratifying forces imposed from the outside. Although Koolhaas’ essay has often been considered a notoriously disdainful commentary against the vibrancy and dynamism of Asian cities, this article argues against such viewpoints. A critical reading of the essay against the grain, as well as a close visual analysis of the set of images accompanied with the essay that are relatively undermined over its textual narrative, shows that Koolhaas in fact considers Asian cities not so much to be a completely alienating and commodified space but rather an uncharted territory where singularities perpetually fold and unfold at varying speeds and rhythms. His use of the term “generic” is here not put in opposition to the ‘singular,’ but rather implicates one’s attitude of responding to given urban milieus in a state of ambivalence that is at once alienating and sense-making. Hence, this article highlights the interplays between engagement and disengagement, interest and disinterest, and overt claim and delaying judgments implicated in the essay, through which to explore the complex relationship between urbanism and everyday life in contemporary Asia.

목차

Abstract
 1. INTRODUCTION
  1.1 The Purpose of the Study
  1.2 The Method of the Study
 2. ANALYZING “THE GENERIC CITY”
  2.1 “The Generic City” and S,M,L,XL
  2.2 The Tonality and Mood of “The Generic City”
  2.3 Airport and “The Generic City”
  2.4 “The Generic City” and an Extended Notion of the Urban
  2.5 “The Generic City” and Asian Urbanism
 3. ANAYZING THE IMAGES OF “THE GENERIC CITY”
 4. “THE GENERIC CITY” AS NEW URBAN AESTHETICS
  4.1 “The Generic City” as a Disinterested Interest
  4.2 The Modernist Urban Aesthetics and “The Generic City”
 5. CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES

저자

• 백승한 [ Paek, Seung-Han | 연세대학교 인문학연구원 연구원, 미술사학 박사 ] Corresponding author

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