The exquisite landscape architecture of Jung Youngsun is celebrated at SMAC in Venice

Providing a stark contrast with the profusion of pavilions old and new that sprouted across the city in the Arsenale and Giardini was the official opening of SMAC, San Marco Art Centre, following a substantial renovation by David Chipperfield Architects.

One of the two inaugural shows at SMAC is ‘For All That Breathes on Earth’, a survey of the life and work of South Korea’s most influential landscape architect, Jung Youngsun, and the landscape architecture firm Seo-Ahn Total Landscape (STL) which she founded in 1987. First exhibited at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea), the show brings vivid life to a career that’s relatively little-known in the West, as well as showcasing the evolution of a discipline that was scarcely understood in South Korea.

In fact, Jung Youngsun (born in 1941) became the very first Korean woman to earn the title of ‘land development engineer’, encouraged into the profession by a country that wanted to rebuild its infrastructure, economy and identity following years of Japanese occupation and the subsequent war with the north.

The exhibition traces Jung Youngsun’s work through the lens of South Korea’s economic and cultural rise, with a special focus on what it describes as the ‘soft power of landscape architecture.’ Here we see the designer working to integrate the athletes' village for both the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, as well as the landscaping surrounding the national pavilions at the 1993 Daejeon Expo.

With more than 300 pieces of archival material including large-scale blueprints and models, extensive photography and videos, there are a total of 24 projects on display, ranging from the substantial – the Gyeongchun Line Forest Trail (2015–2017), South Korea’s equivalent of the High Line – to more intimate spaces like the ‘healing’ gardens that create pockets of privacy for patients at the Asan Medical Center.

Cabinetry and vitrines are made from Korean birch and will be re-used by SMAC for future shows. The latter have been custom made to run between the enfilade that unites each gallery space in this former office. Exhibition information is printed on a traditional Korean textile, coloured yellow in homage to the buttercups in the designer's own garden.

Jung Youngsun has also worked extensively with architects, from Mario Botta, Mass Studies and Hanrahan Meyers to David Chipperfield, with whom she created the sky gardens at the Amorepacific HQ in Seoul, with three apertures planted with maple trees for seasonal variation.

Throughout all these projects, regardless of scale, the designer has emphasised a truly Korean approach to garden design, less formal than the Japanese tradition and more intimate than monumental Chinese landscaping. Instead, these are ‘borrowed landscapes’, created by working with what exists, amplified and enhanced through planting, whether it’s a post-industrial ruin, an urban park or a domestic scale garden.

Above all, Jung Youngsun and STL convey a belief in the healing power of nature. ‘Just as the sight of a rainbow in the sky makes our hearts skip a beat, I hope that the gardens we tend, stroke, and nurture will be a source of inspiration and a moment of healing and recovery for all.’

For All That Breathes on Earth: Jung Youngsun and Collaborators runs until 13 July 2025, SMAC San Marco Art Centre, Procuratie, Piazza San Marco 105, 30124 Venice, SMAC.org, @SMAC_venice, @seoahn.landscape