Brutalism in South Korea

South Korea's modern architecture took shape during the rapid development decades after the war, and its central figure was Kim Swoo-geun, who built a bridge between international concrete modernism and Korean spatial tradition. His Kyungdong Presbyterian Church (1980) in Seoul, a windowless brick-clad mass entered along a slow processional ramp, distills that synthesis and stands close to brutalism in its weight and austerity.

Contemporary Korean practices continue to work in exposed concrete with sculptural ambition; The System Lab's IICOMBINED Headquarters (2025) shows the material's ongoing life in Seoul's commercial architecture.