16 November 2006

Dundee-Korea links celebrated

Exhibition - Kyung Kook Woo
Opening night November 17th, 5-7 pm.

New links between the University of Dundee and two institutions in South Korea will be celebrated this month with one of the first exhibitions of contemporary Korean architecture to be staged in Scotland.

The School of Architecture at Dundee has forged links with Han Yang University and Kookmin University in South Korea which are expected to lead to collaborative staff research and student design projects, and possibly student exchange programmes.

To celebrate, Dundee University is to stage an exhibition of work by the renowned Korean architect Professor Kyung Kook Woo from November 17th to December 2nd.

Mr Woo is a Professor at the School of Architecture, Han Yang University, and twice winner of the Korean Institute of Architects national award. He is also a past president of the KIA.

A celebrated designer in Korea, this is the first time he has exhibited outside Asia.

"Korea is often missed out in discussing architecture and design in that area of the world, primarily due to its geographical location between Japan and China, which have both been extremely high profile in recent times," said Colin Ross, of the School of Architecture.

"However, there is very high quality design work being done in Korea and this is an exciting opportunity for us to establish working links with some of their leading institutions. We are honoured to welcome Professor Woo to Dundee."

The links between Dundee and Korea have been developed during teaching assignments carried out by Colin in Asia.

The exhibition is being staged as a project for second-year architecture students at Dundee, who were given the task of carrying out the graphic design and manufacture of all the exhibition materials and building some of the models that will be on display from Professor Woo’s original drawings.

"The exhibition has been conceived, created and installed by the students, and they have found it an immensely rewarding project," said Colin.

Graeme Hutton, Dean of the newly-created School of Architecture, said the project to link with the Korean universities illustrated the School’s ambition to drive forward a broad programme integrating research, teaching and professional activity.

"This is an exciting time for the School of Architecture and creating new links like we have done with Han Yang and Kookmin is one example of how we are building on this new identity," said Mr Hutton.

The new School of Architecture was created through the recent academic restructuring of the University.

The exhibition of Professor K. K. Woo’s work will be staged in the Lower Foyer Gallery, Crawford Building, University of Dundee.

For media enquiries contact:

Anna Day
Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: a.c.day@dundee.ac.uk