Shinslab recycles a ship for MoMA’s Young Architects Program in Seoul

The installation by the winners of this year’s MoMA Young Architects Program in Seoul has just been revealed. Shin Hyung-Chul’s Shinslab Architecture has launched the office’s spatial proposal for the coveted honour in one of the South Korean capital’s most important cultural institutions.

The structure, created in collaboration with the Seoul outpost of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) and entitled ‘Temp’L’, is cleverly designed from the recycled steel parts of an old ship.

Flagging up the beauty – and potential – of recycling, the piece also illustrates its creator’s fascination with vessels. Having spent his childhood in Europe, Shin was always inspired by large ships that appear to float ‘in and out of Venice’s exquisite buildings’. The architect took those images and combined them with Le Corbusier’s modernist teachings, that often drew parallels between modern architecture and ocean liners.

At the same time, the piece also represents industrialisation, with the ship as one of the 20th century’s largest structures and symbols of power and technology.

Inside, surfaces are rusty and rough, contrasted by the overall structure’s smooth, curved geometries, that hint to the hull of a ship. Conceived as an outdoor pavilion, featuring seating and planning, the installation will serve as a resting area for the museum’s visitors.

Offering an opportunity to young architecture offices to showcase their work to an international audience, MoMA’s Young Architects Program operates in Italy, Turkey, Chile and South Korea; 2016 is its third year in Seoul and its 17th worldwide edition. Temp’L will be on show in the museum courtyard of MMCA, Seoul until 3 October.