Romanesque Architecture

Seoul-based architect Jong Soung Kimm’s architectural passion extends to the Romanesque architecture of the European Middle Ages whose architectural space and construction fascinate him. Since 2002 he has visited and photographed the more outstanding Romanesque churches and monasteries. In this book Jong Soung Kimm presents a fi rst survey of striking examples from Germany and Belgium. Thoroughly researched and abundantly illustrated it offers a richly faceted view of this important period of Western architectural tradition seen from a Korean perspective.

Jong Soung Kimm’s roots are in Korea, but his formative years were spent in Chicago, as a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology and later in the offi ce of Mies van der Rohe. From 1961 to 1972 – Mies’s fi nal and most prolifi c years – Kimm worked on the older architect’s iconic last projects like the meticulously crafted Brown Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Toronto-Dominion Centre. In 1978, Kimm returned to Seoul, opening his own architectural design consultancy, SAC International. For the past 40 years, Kimm’s buildings – such as the Weightlifting Gymnasium for the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the Woo Yang Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyongju – have evinced both his admiration for Mies and a Korean sensibility.