I Only Practiced Cinematic Architecture
I am an architect. I have done one thing in my work: cinematic architecture.
Cinematic architecture does not see a building as a single photograph. It sees the time a person spends moving through it. And it gives the leading role in that time to the person with the least power.
In a dormitory, the leading role belongs to the students. They eat there, study there, and sleep there. A sleeping person cannot protect themselves. So a dormitory must be built for the child who is asleep.
In 2009 I reviewed the design documents for the dormitory at Yeongam High School in Korea. When I opened the papers, I first pictured the children who would sleep inside. Then I asked: have these columns and beams been verified by testing?
In 2010 the Architectural Safety Research Institute of Mokpo National University wrote that the structural performance should be evaluated by experiment and that reinforcement should then be decided. In August 2026 the education office answered me: there is no record that an experimental performance evaluation was carried out.
I did not set out to fight. I did not set out to bring anyone down. I only wanted to confirm that the leading character is safe through the last scene of the film.
Seventeen years have passed. The question is the same. Has the house where those children sleep been verified?
In 1993 the Hankyoreh newspaper introduced Mr. Park Gwang-seo, a geomancer who had spent thirty years walking the country in search of good ground. His motto was this: you earn a good resting place by building virtue while you live.
I heard these words from him. The good ground has its own rightful owner. The legend of a great Korean will be born. His student, a doctor of Korean medicine named Kang, told me of General Shin Sung-gyeom, born in Gokseong, who gave his life in place of his king.
To this I add my own thought, gathered from the thinking of many specialists. There is an old phrase for the beauty of Baekje: modest but not shabby, splendid but not extravagant. I believe those who understand this beauty will lead the world's civilization.
A good person comes before good ground. Architecture is the same. The person who sleeps inside comes before a good building.
Today is Hangul Day.
King Sejong made an alphabet for people who could not express their thoughts in writing. It was not made for the powerful. I believe the legend of a great Korean began there.
A legend is not made of large buildings or large words. It is made by creating letters for people who cannot read, and by checking one column for a child who is asleep. A great Korean is someone who does such work to the end. I believe we can make that legend again.
Some things are passed on in letters. Others are passed from mouth to ear and received by the heart. That is how I received Mr. Park's words. Do not lie. Do not harm the weak. Admit it when you are wrong. These are not learned from books. They are learned at the family table.
Now it is time to make that table wider. Not only for those born in Korea, but for people around the world who have become Korean at heart. I believe that time is now.
In Sejong there is a 700-meter path. It runs from the Tree of Love, across the railway, up the ridge, to the place of an ancestor. At the end of that path a black eagle rises. Those who have walked it know: that eagle is me.
Sejong is the name of the king who made Hangul. Sejong is also the name of the city where that path lies.
Today, a black eagle rises over Sejong.
October 9, 2026, Hangul Day
Chunhwa Lee, Architect
This statement does not assert that the building is unsafe today. It asks that the evidence behind the judgment of safety be confirmed.
Release and Summaries
Today is Hangul Day. King Sejong made an alphabet for people who could not express their thoughts in writing. In that spirit, I am setting out the outline of what I have written so that anyone can read it.
This release is made in my own name as an architect. It is not an official document of any clan association or institution. The essay, the Collected Papers and the public edition of the motto study are published in full. On Peace in the East 2026 is summarized, with a link to the book.
1. I Only Practiced Cinematic Architecture (full text)
An essay for Hangul Day, published separately in Korean and English.
2. K-OMPHALOS Collected Papers (summary and full text)
Six papers compiled on June 18, 2026. All point to one path: 700 meters in Jeonui, Sejong.
- Part 1, "Together at the Table": a manifesto of cinematic architecture. What humanity has lost is not technology but relationship. Cinematic architecture is architecture that lets people meet one another again.
- Part 2, Field Study Report: four journeys, from Greece in 2022 to Italy in 2026.
- Part 3, The 700-Meter Cultural Landscape: a policy proposal to preserve the path from the Tree of Love to the founder's burial ground as a living cultural landscape.
- Part 4, The Geum River Path: a plan linking Gongju to Sejong along the river.
- Part 5, The Miracle on the Geum: a vision joining Sejong, Gongju and Daejeon as one cultural region.
- Part 6, "Walk First, Then Decide": begins with the Yeongam High School dormitory. The problem is not a wrong decision but the absence of a structure that stops and asks again before deciding. It proposes first creating a place where the last generation of separated families can stand together.
Read the full Collected Papers (English)
3. On Peace in the East, 2026 (summary)
By Chunhwa Lee, Geumhee Choi and Yueun Lee. Subtitle: "The question of 1910, an answer in 2026."
In 1910, in Lüshun prison, An Jung-geun planned his treatise on peace in five parts and stopped at two. This book was written sitting beside that empty place.
- Chapters 1–6: from the southern shore at Jangheung to the morning at Harbin, the courtroom, the baptismal name Thomas, the book written in prison, and the town that kept his memorial rites though it shared no blood with him.
- Chapters 7–11: the author's own family. He looks for the founding story in the official histories and writes plainly where it does not appear. Then the first trace of the rites in documents, the design of the 700-meter path, the ritual of walking, sitting and eating together, and a clan that opens its gate.
- Chapters 12–15: from the dignity of Koreans to human dignity; war in an age when judgment is automated; and, before the unfinished war on the peninsula, a simple call: let us share a meal.
The book keeps one promise: what was verified is written as verified, and what was not is written as not verified.
Who is missing from your table? The English edition is an 86-page journey with one photograph, available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
On Peace in the East 2026 on AmazonKorean edition at YES24
4. A Study of the Sources and Transmission of the Family Motto (summary and full text)
A study of when the eight-character motto of the Jeonui Yi family came to be handed down as King Sejong's own writing.
- Confirmed: in 1432 King Sejong honored Yi Jeong-gan for filial piety, as recorded in the Veritable Records.
- Not confirmed: the eight characters do not appear in records of that time.
- Later records: the earliest known attribution to Sejong is reported in a late 16th-century genealogy; the first in a state record is from 1722.
- Conclusion: the study does not take a side. It separates the layers. The royal honor is fact. The attribution of the writing is tradition. Keeping the two apart is the way to honor the motto.
Read the full study, public scholarly edition (English)
To the reader
- I have kept apart what sources confirm, what the family has handed down, and what is my own reading.
- The writing on the Yeongam High School dormitory does not assert that the building is unsafe today. It asks that the evidence behind the judgment of safety be confirmed.
- The black eagle is a symbol, not a literal bird. The 700 meters and the walking time are provisional until measured on site.
- If you find an error, tell me. I will correct it and keep a record of the correction.
There is a 700-meter path in Sejong. Let us walk together, sit together, and eat together.
October 9, 2026, Hangul Day
Chunhwa Lee, Architect