Rising from the Crushing Bowl

Rising from the Crushing Bowl is a powerful and original study of Seoul’s urban and architectural evolution, told through the lens of an architect who has lived and worked in the city for over four decades. In his book, which is part memoir, part cultural history, and part urban analysis, Sung Hong Kim traces how South Korea’s capital—once a walled city shaped by Confucian ideals—has become a sprawling, vertical metropolis marked by rapid modernisation, deep structural contradictions, and a fierce, creative resilience.

Organised into four parts, Kim surveys Seoul’s urban landscape from the late 14th century to the aftermath of the Korean War, illuminating the layers of occupation, destruction, and imposed planning that have shaped the city’s foundation. Throughout, he questions what it means to build a life and a practice in a city that never quite feels like home. His reflections on displacement, constraint, and ingenuity speak to a broader global condition faced by architects and urban dwellers alike: how to find meaning and agency within environments shaped by forces beyond their control.

At once personal and panoramic, Rising from the Crushing Bowl offers a vital perspective on Seoul as a city of paradoxes, where fragments of history coexist with radical new forms, and where the uneven fabric of urban life reveals the story of a nation that has risen, forcefully and unevenly, from the ruins of war and colonisation to become a cultural and economic powerhouse.