Beomsik WON takes photographs of urban buildings from different times and spaces, breaks them down into segments using digital techniques, and constructs collages to create familiar-looking, yet imaginary buildings. To make these “Archisculptures” as it is called, he carefully combines the segments taking into consideration the architectural size, space, and formative elements; he then places them against simple backgrounds, and lastly adds people or birds for the viewers to guess the size of the building. Although these strange buildings are products of the artist’s imagination, they show various styles of architectures throughout history.

• In the Archisculpture series, WON collaged the images of politically or socially important buildings in order to present a new interpretation of a city that operates like an enormous organism.
• He shows not only the history of the city but also the history of its people by revealing the surface of buildings that have been damaged due to natural weathering or historical incidents and then subsequently repaired.
• The Archisculpture, essentially a collage of history and people, is how the artist collects, classifies, and preserves the collective memory.

His images are digitally manipulated photographs of non-existent, fantastical buildings that appear to be real.

“You have a photography and arts background. Where did your interest in architecture originate from? What inspired you to launch the Archisculpture photo project?

My interest in architecture stems from its gigantic size and pragmatic functions. Whenever I see buildings of grand scale or interesting design I usually take photos, so I’ve got thousands of them. However, I couldn’t use those photos because even though I took them I thought it’s not my work but the architects’. Thus I decided to use them as material for my artworks.”

At first, he only made images in black and white, but then he realised that the real world is not b&w but coloured. So since then he has been making two version at the same time. He believes the black and white version is more surrealistic than colour one.

Image Analysis:

• Beomsik Won digitally manipulates and constructs buildings, compiling them together to create a completely new building. In this image he has combined an industrial machine, office buildings and  a cafe together.
• The layout of the image is very aesthetically pleasing, with many straight lines within the windows and walls, as well as the straight horizon behind the buildings.
• The buildings are placed to emphasise their different architectural sizes, levels and shapes, each level complementing each other.
• He combines the different types of buildings and structures to show the contrast between them and compiles them together into one structure to make it appear real and to show various styles of architectures throughout history.
• In the Archisculpture series, Won collaged the images of politically or socially important buildings in order to present a new interpretation of a city that operates like an enormous organism.
• He emphasises the history of the buildings  by showing the surface of buildings that have been damaged due to natural weathering or historical incidents.
• He took photos of the buildings from the same angles, or digitally manipulated them, so that they all fit together and face the same angle so they connected easily.
• He uses a simple background of a cloudy sky and a cobbled pavement to emphasise the building he created  and the present it in a place where a normal building wouldn’t be, not surrounded by anything.
• He takes the photos at different times of day so the lighting is different in each image. The glass window on the office building is reflecting white light , whereas the other buildings are not, emphasising how it is from the present-day as it is modern.