This study defines “Constructional Adjustment” as the process of adapting current architectural features to transform local conditions in order to realize a compositional order, and suggests it as a fundamental analytical principle behind Mario Bo...
This study defines “Constructional Adjustment” as the process of adapting current architectural features to transform local conditions in order to realize a compositional order, and suggests it as a fundamental analytical principle behind Mario Botta’s architecture. It starts by acknowledging the shortcomings of the current discourse – especially the Critical Regionalism theory – in explaining Botta’s works produced after his practice expanded internationally. In this sense, Constructional Adjustment functions as an alternative analytical framework for interpreting Botta’s latter work.
Korea is one of the key countries where nine of Botta’s projects have been realized over four decades, from the period when his international practice began in earnest to the present. At the same time, relationships with foreign architects have been central in the shaping of current and modern Korean architecture. The influx of foreign architects, initially driven by the goal of postwar technical assistance, has passed through various historical phases and has reached today’s open stage of internationalization. Against this background, this study analyzes Botta’s projects in Korea within the broader context of the development of contemporary Korean architecture, and further aims to offer implications for collaborative structures between foreign architects and local architects.
Methodologically, this study establishes an empirical foundation by combining a comprehensive analysis of Botta’s projects in Korea with three rounds of in-depth interviews with his local partner architect, Han Manwon. However, the study is distinguished by its approach in that it does not keep analysis narrow to completed buildings; instead, it traces the entire process from design through construction and archives fragmented information by producing exterior wall detail drawings prepared by the author for each project, thereby constructing a concrete analytical basis. Using this process, the study closely examines whether Botta met Korea’s demands for technical, economic and institutional change and the necessary conditions to retain a legitimate, formal order and elaborates on how this adjustment took place and how far it progressed.
The main body of the text first covers descriptions of foreign architects who have entered Korea and, as a preliminary step, develops a typology of their collaborations with local architects. Set against this backdrop, it discusses Botta’s entrance into Korea and the circumstances surrounding the launch of multiple projects, with particular attention to the distinctive relationship formed with Han Manwon. It also expounds the main features of Botta’s architecture in terms of “form” (transformational application based on geometry) and “construction” (masonry-based construction methods and horizontal patterning), thereby concretizing the concept of Constructional Adjustment; on this basis, this study conducts in-depth analyses of the nine Korean projects selected as its primary objects of analysis.
The analysis finds that the modes of Constructional Adjustment in Botta’s works in Korea can be broadly classified into four types: (1) the implementation of precast methods to maintain repetitive order and to enable the high-rise application of brick construction; (2) alterations in details and materials in response to economic conditions; (3) the introduction of new construction methods to express geometric forms; and (4) the selection of materials appropriate to the characteristics of particular projects. Through this, the universal geometric language and horizontal formal order that Botta consistently sought to pursue were realized in Korea in relation to local constraints—Korea’s technical capacity, the economic difficulties of the IMF foreign exchange crisis, and the institutional context of public architecture. The study confirms that this process was not a simple repetition of geometric and horizontal motifs, but a transformation grounded in active reinterpretation. The constructional features realized in Botta’s works in Korea not only expanded his own architectural language, but also tended to diffuse and exert influence within Korea’s architectural community.
At the same time, the factors that give rise to Constructional Adjustment vary across three interested parites: (1) the client and the domestic architectural office, (2) Mario Botta, and (3) the partnership between Mario Botta and Han Manwon. This indicates that Constructional Adjustment does not occur in a single uniform manner, but emerges in multilayered ways within diverse collaborative structures. The discussion is further developed through comparative case studies of major Korean projects designed by other foreign architects, which serve to specify the collaboration characteristics corresponding to the actor groups identified above. This analysis offers important implications for the role of local architects and the structuring of collaboration in Korea’s current architectural context, where the inflow of foreign architects is rapidly increasing.
Thus, the analytical framework of Constructional Adjustment for the maintenance of formal order provides a new lens through which to evaluate Botta’s later works. That is, Botta’s projects in Korea should be understood not as the result of simple formal transplantation or passive acceptance of physical conditions, but as products of Constructional Adjustment grounded in collaboration. This study’s argument is not limited to Botta’s case; rather, it holds scholarly significance in that it offers an expanded viewpoint for interpreting the increasingly common entry of foreign architects and their collaborative relationships with local architects.