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On Architecture | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kim Jong-Il |
| First published | 1991 |
| Source | Archive.org |
WORKING PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE WORLD, UNITE!
Intro
A long time has elapsed since the architectural revolution began in our country. In whole-hearted support of the great leader Comrade Kim II Sung’s far-sighted architectural plan, our architects and building workers fully displayed their ardent loyalty and creative wisdom to carry out the Party’s policy on architectural creation. As a result, they have created the Juche architecture of our own style, which is new, original and revolutionary. They have renovated the appearance of the country and demonstrated the great features of Juche Korea far and wide. This means a highly valuable fruition of our Party’s architectural creative policy as well as a proud success that our architects and building workers, who are unfailingly loyal to the Party and the leader, have achieved.
By establishing the revolutionary Juche architecture of our own style for the first time in the world, our architects and building workers have made our country the cradle of socialist and communist architecture and set an example in this field.
In the course of creating the architecture of our own style through the architectural revolution, the Juche theory of architecture has been systematized, the relationships between architecture and society, and between architecture and man have been clarified fully on an absolutely scientific basis, and the theory of architectural creation, the theory of architectural fonnation and the method of guidance that must be consistently maintained by the party of the working class have been established.
The Juche theory of architecture is an absolutely scientific and revolutionary theory of architecture and a great programme for the creation of socialist and communist architecture that can thoroughly meet the requirements of the age of Juche and the aspirations and demands of the masses.
We must thoroughly implement the Juche theory of architecture, which has been developed and enriched during the architectural revolution to meet the requirements of the Juche era and the aspirations and the demands of the masses, and the scientific character and validity of which have been verified in the practical struggle for the creation of socialist and communist architecture. By so doing we will create a new, original and revolutionary architecture of our own style and fully display its vitality.
Architecture and Society
Architecture Is a Product of Social History
Architecture is a means of ensuring the spiritual and material conditions for people’s lives and activities.
Architecture is inseparably related to people’s lives. Good houses are a prerequisite for people’s happy and harmonious home lives, factories are indispensable for the production of machines and clothing, and theatres, cinemas, parks and pleasure grounds are needed for people’s cultural lives.
Architecture is more closely related to human life than any other product of creative human labour. Without architectural structures it would be impossible to ensure the basic material conditions for human life and maintain human life itself.
The existence of human beings is the reason for the existence of architecture, which enriches human life. Because architecture is closely related to human life, people have defined architectural structures as one of the three indispensable elements for human life since ancient times and paid great attention to architectural creation and development.
Architecture is a product of social history.
Architecture emerged with the emergence of society and has developed in step with social progress.
Architecture reflects the needs of human life and human aspirations, and its important mission is to meet the material and spiritual demands of human life. In the primitive communal society where people’s consciousness of independence and their creative ability were very weak, it was their material and spiritual needs to protect themselves from adverse natural phenomena, from attacks by wild animals and to worship God and their ancestors. To meet these social needs in the primitive communal society, dugouts, dolmens and upright stones were “created”. With social progress and the growth in their consciousness of independence and their creative ability, people gradually tried to organize living space purposefully to meet their demands, raised particular aesthetic demands in architectural creation and strove to realize them. As a result, construction acquired the character of art. Since the process of architectural creation comprises the process of people’s creation of material wealth and the process of their artistic creation, it can be said in the strict sense that architecture emerged when constructions acquired artistic qualities.
With the development of human society, from the primitive communal society to the slave-owning society, from the slave¬ owning to feudal society, and from the feudal to capitalist society, people’s consciousness of independence and their creative ability grew higher, their demands for material life became varied, and architecture developed accordingly. The development of the productive force, production relations, science, technology and culture furthered the development of architecture. Factories and various other buildings for the production of the material wealth of society were constructed and enlarged, public buildings with a variety of missions to satisfy the varied demands of life were erected, and villages, towns and cities developed gradually on a large scale. The development of construction from wooden buildings to reinforced concrete buildings, from one-storey buildings to multi-storey buildings, and from simple structures to complex structures is inconceivable without the development of the productive force, science, technology and culture. The development of the productive force, science, technology and culture is made by the masses. The decisive factor in the development of architecture is the masses, the basic motive force of social progress.
Architecture is created by the creative wisdom, labour and artistic activities of the masses. Therefore, architecture comprehensively reflects the material needs of the people, their customs, sentiments, emotions, aesthetic tastes and other aspects of human life in the period.
Architecture, which emerged and has developed in the context of society, reflects the dominant ideas and social relationships of the period and is permeated with them.
In the exploitative society the reactionary ideas of the exploiting class dominate the society and hamper the healthy development of architecture. The establishment of the economic foundation of industrial capitalism on the ruins of the feudal economy, and the commercialization of architecture gave birth to the architectural ideas of the reactionary bourgeoisie and various architectural trends and schools in the history of the development of architecture. Under the influence of the ideas of the reactionary ruling class and the relationships within capitalist society, palaces, cathedrals, castles and other unproductive buildings, the products of feudal society, gave way to large-scale productive buildings, markets, banks, department stores and various other commercial buildings, which were aimed at making profits.
Although the working masses laid material foundations and developed science and technology by their creative labour in the capitalist society, the dominant ideas and political and moral concepts of the society became more and more reactionary, and architecture, which was dominated by them, grew more anti- popular and decadent.
The capitalist society braked the healthy development of architecture. In a society where the masses are shackled by political and economic fetters, the dominating ideas of society become more reactionary instead of becoming progressive, in spite of the development of the economic foundations of the society, and the masses are subject to reactionary ideas and culture. In the capitalist society, all the material means of architectural creation are in the hands of a few big businesses, architecture exclusively serves their pleasure and profit-making, and the architects and builders are compelled to work as slaves to money in order to survive, so architecture for the good of the masses is inconceivable.
In the socialist society, where the masses are the masters of nature and society, the revolutionary idea of the working class guides architectural creation and reflects itself fully in architecture.
The Juche idea is the greatest revolutionary idea of the working class in our times. The Juche idea is a man-centred idea, which is based on the philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything. The creation and development of socialist architecture is guided by the Juche idea. In the socialist society, architectural creation is conducted with the attitude of approaching architecture from the point of view of the masses’ interests and dealing with the development of architecture mainly on the basis of their activity. Socialist-communist architecture, which emerged and has developed on the ideological and theoretical basis of the Juche idea and reflects the requirements of the Juche age, is the most revolutionary architecture serving the working masses.
Architecture assumes class character. The class character of architecture is defined according to the class interests it reflects and which class it serves. In a class society, there cannot be and has never been super-class architecture.
In the exploitative society, architecture serves the exploiting class because the exploiting class is provided by state power with the social positions and privileges to live in luxury, dominating the society and putting down the masses. The architectural structures in the feudal age reflected the way of life of the exploiting class including feudal landowners, the ruling class of the period; and architectural structures in the capitalist society represented the anti- popular, decadent material and spiritual lives of capitalists.
The industrialization and mechanization of production in the capitalist society obliterated aesthetic human relations with the object of labour that had existed in limited scope in the Middle Ages, and wiped out even the popular elements of architecture that had remained among the peasantry. The development of popular and progressive architecture was extremely restrained, and decadent reactionary bourgeois architecture, which catered for the needs, sentiments and tastes of the exploiting class, held sway. Although the economic foundations, science and technology further developed in the period of monopoly capitalism, architecture became more reactionary and decadent in terms of its ideological and artistic qualities.
In order to overcome the contradiction between architecture and social development and create genuinely popular architecture, it is necessary to overthrow the exploitative society. In this sense, we can say that the history of architecture is a part of social history and that the working masses are the makers of architectural history and the motive force for the development of architecture.
Even though the masses are the motive force of the development of architectural history, they cannot hold the legitimate position of masters nor play the role as such in the exploitative society. If the working masses are to occupy the position of masters of architecture and perfonn their role as such, they must establish the socialist system, under which they can take state power and the means of production in their hands and create architecture capable of meeting their demands and aspirations.
In the socialist society, architectural creation is the concern of the masses themselves, and architecture is created and developed rapidly drawing on their creativity and limitless strength. This shows that the process of developing socialist architecture is a process of strengthening the working masses’ position in nature and society and enhancing their role to the highest.
In the exploitative society, the masses do not and cannot have their own architecture. It is true that in the exploitative society all the architectural structures are constructed by the masses’ creative work, wisdom and techniques, but these are not created to meet their demands and aspirations to the full. In the exploitative society, the masses can neither own these structures nor enjoy them.
Because enormous amounts of material wealth and funds are needed for the creation of architectural structures, individual architects in the exploitative society cannot create structures truly for the people even if they wish to do so. Even if material wealth and funds needed for architectural creation for the people are available, the exploiting class does not allow them to be spent for this purpose. A progressive and popular character of architecture created in the exploitative society can be found only in simple houses that were built with limited materials on the strength of the people’s refined architectural skill to meet their living requirements and in the progressive and popular elements, which are the products and reflection of their creative labour, talents and resourcefulness. This is exactly the reason why architecture in the exploitative society reflects a progressive and popular character.
Because the exploitative society is thoroughly anti-popular, architecture that reflects this society acquires an anti-popular character.
Bourgeois architects in the capitalist society now talk about “humanistic architecture” or “humane architecture”, but this is no more than a lie to deceive the masses and hide the reactionary, anti-popular character and real nature of capitalist architecture.
Victory in the socialist revolution and the establishment of the socialist system have opened a new age of genuinely popular architecture in the development of human architecture.
Socialism means a people-centred society in the true sense of the word. In the socialist society, where the masses are the masters of everything and everything serves them, architecture meets the demands and aspirations of the masses.
Socialist architecture has the basic mission to provide the masses with good working, living and recreational conditions.
Embodying loyalty to the working class and the people in architectural creation is the basic quality that defines the class character and essence of socialist architecture.
All the exploitative societies, ranging from the slave-owing to the capitalist society, produced corresponding reactionary, anti- popular architecture, whereas the socialist society, in which the masses are independent makers of history, provides the possibility to create the most revolutionary, popular architecture. This is an inevitable outcome of the development of architecture as a product of social history.
Architectural structures give a comprehensive visual expression to the appearance of a country. One can understand the political, economic and cultural development of a country by seeing its architectural structures.
The socio-political system of a country defines the direction and class character of its architectural creation, and architectural structures express the class essence of the society.
In the exploitative society, the exploiting class constructs power institutions, pleasure grounds and palatial mansions in the hearts of cities and in the places with good scenery and erects a forest of super-highrise buildings in every street for the purpose of boasting of their power, elevating their dignity and overpowering the masses with the feeling of helplessness and servitude. The mode of cityconstruction in the exploitative society is a product of its reactionary, anti-popular political system.
In the socialist society, unlike the exploitative society, theatres, cinemas, department stores, houses and parks are laid out in the hearts of cities and in beautiful places so that the hearts of cities are always crowded with merry people and overflow with the joy of happy people. We have constructed a holiday resort in Mt. Myohyang that has large deposits of high-quality gold ore, instead of developing a goldmine there, not because we were ignorant of the value of gold or we were better off than other nations but because we intended to provide the people with happier living conditions and cultural recreation. This measure fully accords with the essential nature of the socialist system and proves its advantage.
The economic power of a country and its development in science, technology and culture ensure success in architectural creation and are demonstrated through architecture.
The economy, science, technology and culture define the scale, quality, economic effect and artistic quality of architecture. A powerful economy is the prerequisite for undertaking an audacious, large-scale architectural project, and highly developed science and technology make it possible to industrialize, moderni z e and rationalize architectural creation on a scientific basis to effect modem and economical construction. Cultural development raises people’s ideological level and enriches their aesthetic feelings, so that they raise high aesthetic requirements and create new architecture.
The history of architecture in our country clearly proves the importance of the role of economic and cultural advances in the development of architecture.
No country in the world now undertakes so much construction and develops architecture so rapidly as our country does. Every year we construct many buildings, each requiring tens of thousands of tons of steel. Wecreate architecture in our own style and realize our people’s age-old wishes and ideals. Because we have consolidated the foundation of the socialist independent national economy and developed science, technology and culture from the point of view of Juche by accelerating economic and cultural construction under the banner of the Juche idea, we have been able to undertake construction on a large scale and create a great garden of Juche architecture. We are carrying out construction on an incomparably gigantic scale, and the architecture of Juche that has attained the world standard powerfully demonstrates the great capabilities of our socialist independent national economy and the full picture of the development of our Juche-oriented national culture.
Because architecture shows a comprehensive visual picture of the politics, economy and culture of a country, great importance has been attached to architectural creation, and great efforts have been put into this work without exception in every society and in every period of history.
Architectural structures created by humanity are not only material but also spiritual products. None of them has ever been created without mental efforts and without the investment of materials. The work of architectural creation begins with man’s mental activities and is completed with his physical activities supported by materials.
Mental activities are a prerequisite for architectural creation, and physical activities and materials are the guarantees for this work.
Architecture is the material, spiritual and cultural wealth of society that has been produced by man’s creative work.
Architecture as such plays the role of material utility and the role of information and education. People often call architecture an art of utility.
Utility and the ideological and artistic qualities are the essential qualities of architecture.
Utility is related to man’s material needs. Ideological and artistic qualities are related to man’s ideological and aesthetic needs.
The ideological and artistic qualities of architecture are the characteristics that distinguish architecture from other branches of science and technology; its utility is the feature that distinguishes it from other arts.
Utility and ideological and artistic qualities as essential qualities of architecture exist in organic unity.
A failure to understand their organic relationship may result in committing a bourgeois error in architectural creation. If you regard utility as absolute because architecture has an important function of providing people with material living conditions and ensuring utility in life, and ignore the ideological and artistic qualities, you will make a functionalist mistake. Functionalism is a bourgeois ideological trend of architecture that regards buildings purely as mechanical devices for living, or purely as a means of making profits. Conversely, if you emphasize only artistic quality and disregard utility in life, you will make a mistake of art for art’s sake. Art for art’s sake is a bourgeois formalistic trend of architecture that emasculates utility and produces sensational and advertizing structures. Both functionalism and art for art’s sake hamper the development of socialist architecture and speed up the process of capitalist architecture becoming reactionary and decadent.
Architecture can only fulfil its mission and role satisfactorily and serve social progress effectively when it ensures ideological and artistic qualities and utility in organic unity.
For its function of material utility and for its ideological and artistic function architecture acts on social development positively and actively.
For its high utility and noble and beautiful ideological and artistic qualities, socialist architecture gives people an understanding of the advantages and invincibility of the socialist system, inspires them with national pride and confidence, and educates them to be unfailingly loyal to the Party and the leader and love their country ardently, thus contributing to the capture of the ideological fortress of communism. It also contributes to the capture of the material fortress of communism by ensuring a high rate of extended reproduction and a steady improvement of the people’s material and cultural lives.
Architecture as an art of utility has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from other arts.
Architecture, unlike other arts, uses material means of expression such as dots, lines, planes, space and mass and takes into consideration not only ideological and artistic qualities but also utility, durability and economic effect in an integral way. The representation of reality by architecture is characterized by the fact that it creates space for life and activities and the shapes of space to meet the demands of material and spiritual lives and performs informative and educational functions through the role of ideological, aesthetic and artistic elements and the scientific and technological success involved in the space and its shapes, instead of dealing with the representation of the detailed inner human world and human character as is the case with other arts.
Architecture has characteristics that distinguish it from other arts not only in its representation of reality but also in the evaluation of the qualities of architectural structures. The quality of architecture, unlike other formative arts, is comprehensively evaluated in the course of practical use for a period of time, rather than just visually. The architectural qualities of structures, villages, towns and cities cannot be evaluated only by seeing them with the eyes; they are evaluated comprehensively by living in the spaces for life and activities for a certain period.
In the past a considerable number of people regarded architecture as a “formative art”, a “spatial art”, not as a “time art” that is appreciated in the course of time. Disregarding the utility of architecture in the assessment of its formative aspect is an expression of a fonnalistic viewpoint, a viewpoint of art for art’s sake. In the assessment of architectural creations and the design of architectural composition we must not see only the outward fonnative artistic quality, but examine all the plane planning, the structural solution and the economic effect in an integral way.
Architectural creation has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from other arts in its relation to nature. Architectural creation is the work of transforming the appearance of nature and overcoming its influence on human life. It is the work of transforming nature in a broad sense.
The process of architectural creation has also characteristics that differ from those of pictorial art and sculpture. Pictures and sculptures are planned and produced by painters and sculptors themselves, so if the products are not to their liking, they are discarded and made over again. However, things are different with architectural structures. Architectural structures are planned and designed by architects and constructed by building workers with the investment of large amounts of materials. The constructed structures are used down through generations.
An architect must pay primary attention to designing every single structure qualitatively so that the structure may be of lasting use.
Architectural structures are completed through scientific and technological efforts, through the collective wisdom of building workers and specialists in the fields of structure, heating, ventilation, water supply and sewerage, electricity and building equipment. For this reason architecture, unlike other arts, has various limitations. In architectural creation problems relating to art, utility and economic effect must be resolved in an integral way on the basis of scientific and technological calculations; the conditions of building materials, construction, technological equipment and various other problems that may arise in the stage of management should all be considered; and the requirements of the times, the level of the economic development of the country and all other aspects of the level of national development should be calculated.
With a clear understanding of the essence and characteristics of Juche architecture and its position and role in the revolution and construction, the architects and building workers must push forward architectural creation in the direction indicated by the Party.
Socialist-Communist Architecture Contributes to the Leader’s Revolutionary Cause
Socialist-communist architecture is the revolutionary architecture of the working class. It has an important mission to meet the demands and aspirations of the masses, the masters of nature and society.
In the socialist and communist society, the masses demand that architectural creation provide them with a perfect material guarantee for their independent and creative activities.
In the socialist society, architectural creation is a great undertaking to transform nature as well as worthwhile work that is carried out under a great plan of lasting effect to ensure the country’s prosperity and the people’s material and cultural lives.
Through the creative work of architecture bridges, harbours, power stations, barrages and factories are constructed, modern public buildings and houses are erected in villages, towns and cities, and tidal flats are reclaimed. The creative work of architecture transforms the appearance of the country, strengthens the foundations of the socialist independent national economy, raises the standard of the people’s material and cultural lives, and builds up urban and rural communities to take on a communist appearance.
Since the first days of building a new society after its victory in the revolution, the party of the working class attaches great importance to architectural creation and puts great efforts into this work.
In order to carry out successfully the gigantic work of architectural creation for the building of a new society after the seizure of state power, the working class must receive the leadership of its party, which thoroughly champions and represents the interests of the masses. The leadership of the party of the working class is, in essence, the guidance of the leader.
The leader of the working class is the leader of the revolution who represents the interests of the party and revolution, the working class and other people and leads the struggle for their realization to victory.
Just as the revolutionary cause of the working class can be successfully carried out only under the outstanding leader’s guidance, so the creative work of architecture, an undertaking of far-reaching importance, can be carried out smoothly and achieve a brilliant success only under the guidance of the leader of the working class.
The leader of the working class establishes a revolutionary idea of architecture by fully reflecting the masses’ architectural demands and aspirations, integrating and systematizing them.
His architectural idea is based on the absolutely correct viewpoint and outlook on the masses. As such, it serves as the guideline that architects must adhere to during the whole period of socialist and communist construction as well as their powerful theoretical and practical weapon for success in architectural creation.
The architectural idea of the working class can be a revolutionary idea of architecture capable of making an active contribution to the cause of socialism and communism only when it is based on the guiding ideology of the revolution and construction and thoroughly embodies it. The revolutionary architectural idea of the working class can, therefore, be put forward only by the leader who has evolved the guiding ideology of the revolution and construction.
On the basis of the revolutionary architectural idea, the guideline of architectural creation, the leader sets out the fundamental principles that must be maintained in the realization of the idea as well as the requirements, the general direction and methods for its realization. The magnificent architectural plan set out by the working-class leader is a magnificent blueprint and operation map, which reflects the masses’ architectural aspirations and demands, and is aimed at building up the material foundations of communism, ensuring the people’s material and cultural lives in conformity with the requirements of the socialist and communist society, and developing urban and rural communities into a communist paradise.
The leader, with uncommon organizing ability, mobilizes the masses in the gigantic work of architectural creation under a great plan of lasting effect and victoriously guides the difficult and complex struggle to transform the appearance of the country through his skilful operation and direction.
Of course, architects, building workers and the masses directly undertake the creative work of architecture. But individual architects, however talented and versed in science and technology they may be, find it impossible to conceive and design such a great project of lasting effect in an all-round and comprehensive way as the creative work of architecture for the transfonnation of the country to meet the masses’ aspirations and demands, to achieve national prosperity and raise the level of the people’s material and cultural lives, nor can they organize and mobilize the masses for the realization of the idea. Individual architects are technicians and creative workers who implement the leader’s plan in the general direction of architectural creation indicated by him.
Regarding the leader’s plan and intentions about architectural creation as absolute is the basic creative principle and the secret of success.
Architectural structures that are constructed in accordance with the leader’s intentions and plan not only meet the people’s aspirations and demands but also have high values.
It is a good example that we have totally bulldozed Ryunhwanson Street in Pyongyang that had retained the remnants of factionalism, and constructed Changgwang Street, a modem communist ideal street, there.
As historical experience shows, architects can create excellent structures only when they are guided in creative work by the leader’s plan and idea. Architects must make a deep study of the leader’s plan and idea before they take up their pencils.
When they loyally support the leader’s guidance and implement his plan and intentions without any deviation, architects and building workers can thoroughly overcome sycophancy, dogmatism and all manner of bourgeois formalism in architectural creation and brilliantly embody the people’s aspirations and demands in architectural creation. This is a valuable experience and historical lesson we have learned in the creative work of architecture.
Already during the anti-Japanese revolution, the great leader Comrade Kim II Sung planned the construction of a paradise in the motherland to be liberated, established his Juche-oriented idea of architecture and, after the country’s liberation, developed it in depth in the course of giving leadership to many stages of the revolutionary struggle and the work of construction.
The Juche-oriented idea and theory of architecture is the man- centred idea of architecture evolved on the fundamental basis of the philosophical world outlook of Juche. It is architectural doctrine that can fully realize the masses’ architectural demands for independent and creative lives.
The establishment of the Juche-oriented architectural idea provided the theoretical and practical weapon for the creation of socialist-communist architecture for the first time in history and effected a change towards the creation of Juche architecture centred on the masses in the human history of architecture.
In the difficult days after the war when we had to start everything again from scratch, the sycophants, dogmatists and anti- Party counterrevolutionary elements that had wormed their way into the capital construction sector adopted foreign designs mechanically, asserting their erroneous views, ignoring the country’s economic situation and turning a deaf ear to the people’s aspirations and demands. In consequence, houses equipped with pechika (Russian heating stove—Tr.), which did not accord with our people’s customs and sentiments, were constructed and imitations of European-style buildings appeared in our country.
At the October 1957 Plenary Meeting of the Party Central Committee, the great leader exposed all the machinations of the anti-Party counterrevolutionary elements to criticism and explained the need to establish the Juche orientation in the construction industry.
The great leader wisely guided the architects to establish the Juche orientation in the construction industry, and design and build all the architectural structures in keeping with the situation in our country, our people’s customs and sentiments and to be convenient, cosy, beautiful and durable.
He paid close attention to all the details of structural components, ranging from the composition of production space of large factory buildings to the composition of living space, pillars, railings, walls and even the colours of buildings and ensured through meticulous guidance that these catered to our people’s customs and sentiments and the aesthetic tastes of our contemporaries.
Thanks to the great leader’s wise guidance of architectural creation, we were able to construct much better cities, towns and villages than before in less than ten years after the war, and demonstrated the Korean mettle, although the imperialists had said that we would be unable to reconstruct them even in a hundred years after the war. We have now constructed the people’s paradise that is envied even by the countries that boast of hundreds of years of construction history. We have constructed the West Sea Barrage, one of the largest of its kind in the world, only in five years, an unprecedented miraculous creation that would have taken a developed industrial country half a century or a few centuries to do.
Under the great leader’s wise guidance, a new history of truly popular architecture was recorded, and ideal communist streets, ideal communist villages and communist houses were constructed. In future, all our villages, towns and cities will be constructed on the model of these communist ideals and will be much better than the models. Then the people’s architectural aspirations and demands will be completely met.
The history of architecture in our country shows that all the content of socialist-communist architecture is clarified by the leader of the working class and that the basic method of realizing the people’s architectural aspirations and demands is set out and successfully implemented under his leadership. As you can see, socialist-communist architecture is planned by the leader and created under his guidance.
Socialist-communist architecture is the most revolutionary architecture with a noble mission to safeguard the cause of the working-class leader and brighten the leader’s achievements in the cause down through generations. Its noble mission reflects the masses’ earnest desire to hold the leader of the working class in high esteem.
The outstanding leader of the working class provides the people with genuine life and happiness, with today’s happiness and hopes for the future.
The masses experience this truth through their lives, and their trust in and respect and reverence for the leader are most ardent, absolute and deeply rooted in their hearts.
The masses have noble feelings and an earnest desire to support the leader of the working class with loyalty.
There are no nobler feelings and stronger desire than these for the people who are blessed with genuine life and happiness under the leader’s embrace. That is why the masses regard it vital to the revolution and construction to safeguard their leader and his cause and brighten it down through generations and devote everything to the struggle.
The architecture of the working class can fulfil its mission only when it clearly reflects the masses’ noble ideas and feelings about the leader and their best wishes for him.
The architecture of the working class deals with the monuments to the leader’s greatness as its most important component and makes it the starting-point and the fundamental requirement of architectural creation to realize the masses’ noble ideas, feelings and absolute desire to support the leader with loyalty.
Only when architecture clearly reflects these ideas, feelings and desire of the masses can it lay out living space for the leader’s good health and longevity, properly lay out monuments to his achievements and create them at a high level.
Creating monuments to the leader’s achievements at a high level is an undertaking to create material conditions to brighten the leader’s greatness all around the world and hand it down to posterity.
Monumental structures are the best visual and lasting means of conveying the leader’s achievements and his greatness to posterity. Monuments remain with mankind for ever and therefore have positive effects on people’s ideas regardless of social progress and change of generations. Monumental structures give the masses a deep understanding of the greatness of the leader of the working class and educate them to safeguard and consummate the leader’s cause down through generations.
We have constructed the Tower of the Juche Idea, the Arch of Triumph, the Monument to the Victorious Battle of Pochonbo, the Grand Monument to the Meeting on Mt. Wangjae, the Monument on Lake Samji and many other grand monuments and structures that sing the praises of the great leader’s imperishable revolutionary achievements. These grand monuments present a grand epic picture of the path of glorious struggle traversed by the great leader and the immortal achievements he made during his leadership of our revolution and thus actively contribute to educating the people to be communist revolutionaries of the Juche type.
Socialist-communist architecture serves to support the leader of the working class, not individual heroes, and brighten his achievements and greatness forever down through generations.
Regarding the architecture of the working class as one not serving the leader’s revolutionary cause is a revisionist view on architecture. A person with such a view will not strive to realize the leader’s plan in architectural creation, rejecting his leadership and regarding the individual architect’s view and assertion as absolute. This will result in the failure to reflect correctly the masses’ aspirations and demands in architecture. Then architecture will become deformed, reactionary and anti-popular. The situation of architecture in the countries where capitalism has revived and the revolution is undergoing trials eloquently proves this. In these countries, even monuments to their leaders’ achievements are pulled down, and structures of bourgeois formalism that is fashionable in capitalist countries are appearing in many places.
On the basis of the experience of architectural creation in our country and the lessons of architectural history in other countries, we must work hard to construct architectural structures and grand monuments more excellently to realize the great leader’s plan and guidance thoroughly, to support him more loyally and sing the praises of his greatness and imperishable achievements.
Juche Architecture Is Centred on the People
Juche architecture is people-centred architecture, which embodies the immortal Juche idea. It is the most revolutionary and popular architecture that represents our times, the Juche era, when the masses have emerged as masters of nature and society and shape their destiny independently and creatively.
Architecture, a product of social history, embodies the prevailing idea of the society and reflects the ideals of the people living in that society. Since architecture deals with building materials, technological engineering must not be ignored in architectural creation. But it is more important and preferential to ensure that architectural structures reflect revolutionary ideas and ideals. In architectural creation, structure, construction, heating, ventilation, acoustics, and lighting are related to technological engineering, but ideas and ideals boil down to the ideological and theoretical basis of architecture as well as the fundamental question that defines the aim, objectives, principles, basic requirements and direction of creation and the question of the standard of practice. The architecture of the exploitative society is anti-popular not because the architectural structures are anti-popular but because architecture is rooted in the reactionary ideas and ideals of the ruling class. In the final analysis, architecture is not limited to the question of purely technological engineering but boils down to the question of ideas and ideals.
It is the mission of Juche architecture to embody the Juche idea in it.
The Juche idea is the cornerstone of Juche architecture.
The Juche idea is the starting-point, standard, and guideline of Juche architectural creation. Juche architecture is that which is permeated with the Juche idea. In other words, it is the architecture that embodies the Juche idea in the architectural field.
The masses are always placed at the centre of Juche architecture. Architecture is the product of man, is created at his desire and exists for him. Man is always placed in the centre of architectural creation.
The human question in architectural creation is the standard that defines the class character of architecture. Architecture can be socialist architecture or capitalist architecture depending on which class, the working masses or the exploiting class, is given central consideration, even when man is regarded as the centre of architectural creation.
The outcome of architecture is governed by man and society. A correct solution to the problem of relationships between architecture and man and between architecture and society is a prerequisite for correctly establishing the class character, essence and mission of architecture and the general direction of its creation. Since society is composed of people and developed by them, the centre of society is always occupied by the people. In this sense, it can be said that the question of architecture is defined by them.
In Juche architecture, the masses are regarded as masters of architecture. In the socialist and communist society, the masses create and enjoy architecture. Because of their social position and role, the masses are bound in duty to create architecture and have the right to enjoy it. Of course, the masses create architecture in any society, but in the exploitative society architectural creation is not an honourable duty to the masses but the yoke of capital to them, not the means of providing the people with material and cultural lives, but the means of exploitation and plunder. In the exploitative society, therefore, the masses cannot enjoy architecture although they create it. In the exploitative society, the masses have no interests in architecture; architectural creation means hard toil and hired labour to them, so that they do not display creativity or enthusiasm.
In the socialist society, the masses as masters of society and as masters of architecture have direct and vital interests in architecture. In the socialist society the masses play their role as its masters and not only participate in architectural creation on a voluntary basis in order to increase the production of material wealth for the society and lead rich, civilized and happy lives, but also fully reflect their aspirations and desires in architecture by displaying all their creativity and revolutionary enthusiasm.
Juche architecture, socialist architecture, is incomparably superior to capitalist architecture and develops at a rate unprecedented in the previous society precisely because the masses, who enjoy architecture, take an active part in architectural creation with a high sense of responsibility. Their active participation in architectural creation is a duty as creative workers and enjoyers.
Juche architecture is the model for socialist-communist architecture in that it fully realizes the masses’ architectural demands and aspirations.
The masses desire the construction of the socialist and communist society where they can enjoy independent and creative lives to the full. Their aspirations and demands are the ideal of Juche architecture and define its mission, aim and the general direction of creation.
The mission of Juche architecture is to contribute to modelling the whole society on the Juche idea, which is the historic cause for completely realizing the masses’ independence. At the present moment when our Party has set out its highest programme of modelling the whole society on the Juche idea, the architecture of our times can have no other mission than helping towards this noble cause. Only when Juche architecture takes it as its greatest mission to help towards the cause of modelling the whole society on the Juche idea can it meet the masses’ architectural demands for their material needs and ideological aesthetics to the fullest, actively serve their independent and creative lives in every possible way and fulfil its social function and role in the work of transfonning every field of social life as required by the Juche idea.
Because Juche architecture is created and enjoyed by the masses themselves, their aspirations and demands are always taken as absolute.
We relocated the residential quarters of Chongjin, which had cost us a lot of money to build, to South Chongjin, and although we were very short of steel in the days immediately after liberation we blew up the induction furnaces, because these caused discomfort to the people and were dangerous to their lives. Architecture that discomforts people contrary to their aspirations and demands and interferes with productive activities is not people-centred architecture and not Juche architecture.
Juche architecture is characterized by its unity of content and form that meet contemporary requirements and the people’s aspirations and demands.
The people’s aspirations and demands characterize the content and fonn of architecture and are realized through the content and form. The content and form of architecture can only be genuine when they meet the people’s aspirations and demands.
The content of architecture consists of integrated qualitative elements, and the form is expressed through the compactness, structure, shape and appearance of the composition of the plane- volume space that integrates the qualitative elements. The content of architecture is related to the purpose of creating structures and their mission and character, whereas the form is related to the specific method and vocabulary of realizing them through the choice of structure and shape. The process of creating an architectural form is the process of realizing the content; it is precisely the process of architectural composition and construction.
The content of Juche architecture is socialist, and its form is national.
The socialist content of architecture meets the masses’ aspirations and demands. In other words, it means composing and realizing convenience, cosiness, beauty and durability, which constitute the qualities of architecture, in keeping with the masses’ aspirations and demands.
Convenience is the most important element and quality of the content of Juche architecture. Utility is the first function of architecture, and convenience is the hallmark of utility. In other words, convenience defines utility, and utility characterizes the function of architecture.
An inconvenient structure lacks utility, and a structure that is devoid of utility is gimcrack. Bourgeois fonnalist structures that are fashionable in the capitalist society lack utility. The people require buildings with structural space convenient for their lives, activities and recreation, and with good hygienic facilities, buildings that can ensure their independent and creative lives. Juche architecture regards it as the basic aim of creation to meet these requirements of the people and fully realizes the aim.
The masses’ requirement for convenience is the basic factor that makes Juche architecture people-centred.
Convenience is the product of social history and acquires social nature. In step with social development and with the enrichment of people’s lives, the social requirement, the requirement of the masses, for convenience increases.
In the days of postwar reconstruction from the ruins, people had to live in dugouts, so even a single-room house was welcome to them; but their standard of living has now improved beyond compare, so they demand three-to-four-room flats provided with bathrooms, toilets, drawing rooms, gas service and central heating. In the postwar years when they were poor, they did not think of cultural recreation, but nowadays they require good conditions for cultural recreation, thinking of the way to lead more worthwhile and pleasant lives in this good world. We are now rebuilding the houses that were constructed in the postwar years or pulling them down to build new houses. Every year we undertake construction on a larger scale to build modern houses, theatres, cinemas, gymnasiums, parks and other facilities for cultural recreation, restaurants, shops and other service facilities on a large scale in order to satisfy the growing demands of the people.
The masses’ demand for convenience increases with the development of society. In the course of meeting this demand, the content of convenience grows richer and architecture develops. The people’s growing demand for convenience indicates higher creative goals for construction, creates premises for architectural development and accelerates its progress.
Juche architecture is people-centred in that it sets the people’s architectural demands as its creative goals, satisfies their demands and develops in the course of this.
Juche architecture also meets the masses’ aesthetic demands by embodying the Juche aesthetic idea.
Since architecture is the art of utility, it is unthinkable to separate convenience from beauty. Beauty is an important element of the content of Juche architecture as well as an element of its quality. Convenience characterizes the architectural function of utility, whereas beauty characterizes its ideological and artistic function.
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Architectural beauty is made in the process of people’s creative activities to transform nature and society. Architectural structures created by people when transforming nature and society embody their requirements for life and their ideological and emotional ideals. While living and working in the structural space they have created, people feel and appreciate the quality of beauty that has been embodied in the space.
Juche aesthetics regards the masses’ aspirations and demands as the sole criterion for the evaluation of beauty.
The masses create and enjoy all the beautiful material and cultural wealth of the world. They can identity the essence of beauty. If an architect or a builder calls something good or beautiful, that is no more than his subjective view. The masses’ evaluation of the utility and ideological and artistic quality of architectural structures is the fairest and most objective evaluation. What the masses call good is good, and what they call beautiful is beautiful. Because they are the best judge of beauty, the beauty they aspire to is the noblest beauty of all.
The beauty of Juche architecture, which accords with the masses’ aspirations, reflects their ideas, feelings, aesthetic emotions and tastes expressed in their desire for independence. The beauty of Juche architecture is the noblest, because it shows the noble spiritual world of our contemporaries, who aspire to independence.
Whenever we look around Pyongyang, the revolutionary capital, we feel that Pyongyang is the most beautiful city in the world. We cannot say that this feeling emanates merely from the variety of the forms of the buildings or from their artistic harmony. Formal and formative beauty is, in essence, the beauty of the external form of architecture. Regarding the beauty of fonn and hannony in architecture as the sum total of beauty is the bourgeois viewpoint of architectural beauty. The real beauty of architecture lies not in its external form, but in its content.
Through the magnificent and beautiful appearance of Pyongyang we feel the noble loyalty and ideological and spiritual world of our people, who are determined to hold the great leader in high respect for ever and follow him to the end of this world as well as the unbreakable fighting spirit and revolutionary mettle of our people who, under the wise guidance of the leader, have courageously overcome all difficulties and obstacles, and victoriously advanced. Whenever we see the parks, pleasure grounds, theatres and houses, which overflow with the people’s delight, we feel in our hearts the warm love of the great leader who has devoted all his life to the people.
The beauty of Juche architecture is related to the noble ideas and feelings of people who regard independence as their lifeblood, and is related to the high ideals of people who aspire to independence. That is why the beauty of Juche architecture is the noblest and most glorious of all that is beautiful.
Juche architecture also values formal or formative beauty. Fonnative beauty is an important criterion for the evaluation of the level of architectural interpretation.
The fonnative beauty of architecture is the beauty of the form, which reflects the content of architecture. It is the representation of the beauty of the form reflected in human consciousness.
Beauty is understood differently depending in general on people’s world outlook, class position, cultural level, the level of their knowledge, ideals of beauty, and national sentiments and emotions. Architectural forms must reflect people’s noble and beautiful ideas and feelings, and cater to contemporary aesthetic tastes as well as national tastes and sentiments.
In architecture, the cognition of formative beauty is characterized by its being perceived in organic unity with utility. Even if the shape of an architectural structure is pleasing to the eye, it can never be felt to be truly beautiful if it is inconvenient to use and looks unstable.
The cognition of beauty in Juche architecture combines the joy and pleasure that emanate from the attainment of people’s aspirations and demands for an independent and creative life as a result of their honest labour and display of creative wisdom. This fact adds beauty and truthfulness in cognition to the quality of beauty that is embodied in architectural structures.
The formative beauty of architecture acts on human perception and arouses emotions and, through this process, gives people ideological, aesthetic, cultural and emotional education. It is precisely for this reason that the need to raise the level of the formative quality in architectural creation is emphasized.
The formative quality of architecture occupies an important place in its informative and educational function.
The abstractionist and abnormal formative beauty of capitalist architecture paralyses the masses’ consciousness of independence, and pollutes it with corrupt and decadent bourgeois ideas.
By contrast, the truthful and vivid formative beauty of Juche architecture fully accords with the masses’ aesthetic aspirations, impresses them with the advantages of the socialist system, and national pride and confidence, and contributes to inspiring them with loyalty to the Party and the leader, to the country and their fellows.
Juche architecture ensures the creation of structures of lasting durability, and as such it provides the masses with safe structural living space.
To construct lasting edifices of Juche architecture is a noble undertaking to hand down to posterity excellent architectural works created under the wise leadership of the Party and the leader.
Durability is a practical guarantee for the physical life span of architectural structures. Weak structures cannot last long. Such structures are a constant threat to people’s lives and property, create social worries and undermine the advantages of the socialist system. Therefore, durability constitutes an important component and quality of the content of Juche architecture.
Since architectural structures are material creations for human life, material means for human beings and human life, their utility and ideological and artistic quality alone cannot ensure the fulfilment of their functions. That is because human activities and human life take place within structural space.
Convenience, cosiness, beauty and durability, which constitute the socialist content of Juche architecture, help towards ensuring the masses’ independent and creative lives in every way.
Juche architecture is national in form. The national form in architecture is agreeable to the nation and caters to the nation’s tastes.
Architectural structures are created for the people of a particular region to live in. Architecture is created and developed in keeping with the geographical and climatic characteristics of a particular country, and to cater to the sentiments and tastes of the nation. Since the formation of nations, no architecture has ever departed from national character.
Juche architecture acquires national character because the revolution and construction are carried on within the units of nations.
Socialist content and national form exist in unity. Architects must have a clear understanding that ensuring the unity of socialist content and national fonn is the basic principle of creating Juche architecture, which is a people-centred architecture, and must fully implement the principle.
Architecture and Creation
The Revolutionary Outlook on the Leader Must Pervade Juche Architecture
Revolutionary architecture that embodies the requirements of the era and the people’s aspirations in itself can only be created when revolutionary creative principles that accord with it are maintained. Revolutionary creative principles are the key to success in architectural creation.
Ensuring that the revolutionary outlook on the leader pervades architecture is the fundamental principle that must be firmly maintained in the creation of Juche architecture.
The revolutionary outlook on the leader is the cornerstone for the creation of Juche architecture. Juche architecture actively contributes to realizing the leader’s plan and determination to provide the masses with living conditions that are commensurate with socialist and communist society, to meeting the masses’ desire to hold their leader in high esteem, and to glorifying the leader’s greatness and achievements. Translating the leader’s plan and detennination into reality in architectural creation means putting the leader’s guidance into effect. This question is related to the attitude towards the leader. The question of implementing the leader’s plan and detennination in architectural creation, and the question of holding the leader in high esteem and of singing the praises of his greatness are related to the outlook on the leader. These questions can be correctly solved when architecture is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader.
Being permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader is the lifeline of socialist-communist architecture, Juche architecture. Only when it is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader can Juche architecture be created to meet the requirements of the era and the people’s aspirations, and can fulfil its mission and role as revolutionary architecture of the working class. Architecture that is not permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader in our era is not architecture for the people; it is reactionary bourgeois architecture that contradicts the requirements of the times and the people’s aspirations. Architecture may be for the working class or for the exploiting class depending on whether it is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader or not. Imbuing architecture with the revolutionary outlook on the leader must be made the fundamental principle in the creation of working-class architecture, and this principle must be firmly upheld.
Architecture that is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader fully realizes the leader’s plan and determination, and makes it possible to hold the leader in high esteem and pay high tribute to his greatness.
An important matter in creating architecture that is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader is to realize the leader’s architectural plan and determination completely.
The leader’s architectural plan and determination are to create socialist-communist architecture that can contribute to the prosperity of the country and to the happy lives of the people. The leader’s architectural plan and determination fully incorporate the requirements of our times and the people’s aspirations. Realizing them means perfectly meeting the people’s aspirations and the requirements of our times. They are not only the guideline to the creation of Juche architecture and the standard of creative practice but also the guarantee for success. Therefore, they must be regarded as absolute in the creation of Juche architecture, and must be implemented without the slightest deviation.
The Grand People’s Study House, located in the heart of Pyongyang, the capital of revolution, is a great monumental structure, with socialist content in national form, of which our people are proud. When the designing of the study house started, the great leader said that it would be a good idea to build it in the Korean style. At that time, some officials and architects had suggested building it in a modem style in a big way to give prominence to the center of the city, since the building would occupy the very heart of the city. There were various forms of architecture proposed, but we rejected them and adopted the Korean style espoused by the leader. Because it was constructed in the Korean style, as intended by the leader, it became a masterpiece by world standards.
Regarding the leader’s architectural plan and detennination as absolute, and implementing them without question means ensuring the leader’s unified guidance. It is the basic guarantee for ensuring a high degree of utility and ideological and artistic quality of architecture. It also means the full flowering of Juche architecture and safeguarding the purity of Juche architecture by thoroughly overcoming outmoded, decadent and reactionary architectural ideas and trends.
Architects must accept and fulfill the leader’s plan and determination not as orders and duty but as a matter of pleasure and honour. Only then will their hearts throb with intense loyalty to the leader and creative enthusiasm, and carry out the leader’s plan and determination accurately.
An important task in creating architecture that is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader is to meet the people’s desire to support the leader with loyalty.
Creating architecture to ensure the well-being of the leader means composing architectural space to ensure his good health and long life. This is the first and foremost task related to the architectural function of utility as well as the fundamental question related to its informative and educational function. Because architecture perfonns the function of utility, the people require architectural space that is composed for the convenience of life and productive activities. A rational composition of architectural space is indispensable for good health and long life.
Since architecture provides a material means of assisting the leader’s revolutionary activity, rational composition of architectural space is a prerequisite for creating an environment conducive to the leader’s well-being. Therefore, primary attention must be paid to the perfect solution of the problems relating to the composition of architectural space, ventilation, heating, lighting, illumination and acoustics in the structural space, and other architectural, engineering, physical and hygienic requirements for the leader’s well-being. All the architectural solutions must be subordinated to meeting these requirements. This is the most important principle that must be observed in the composition of the structural space intended not only for the leader’s regular use but also for his temporary use.
The Chongjin Stadium may or may not be visited by the leader. However, the above-mentioned principle must be thoroughly observed in the architectural solutions to the problems relating to such structures. When designing the stadium, the officials in charge of physical culture and sports insisted that the longitudinal axis of the stadium should be set in keeping with the international rules of athletics, whereas the architects objected to the proposal on the grounds that in that case the platform would have to be placed where a gymnasium had already been constructed. So I told them to set the longitudinal axis to ensure the great leader’s well-being and long life in good health although the stadium might not get international recognition. Only when they think, design and create anything with an unshakable attitude of ensuring the leader’s well¬ being and long life in good health in the best way possible can architects find an excellent solution to the fundamental problem of supporting the leader with loyalty.
Another important task in creating architecture that is permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader is to ensure that architectural structures are a high tribute to the leader’s greatness and brighten it down through generations. Architectural structures are creations made of materials. They can have a lasting value on the strength of the lasting quality of these materials and their structural durability. The artistic interpretation of architectural structures is the ideological and spiritual guarantee for singing high praises of the leader’s greatness, and the lasting quality of materials and their structural durability are the material guarantee for brightening his greatness down through generations.
The basic factor in highly praising the leader’s greatness is to represent the leader’s image brightly and respectably. The leader’s image must always be placed in the centre of the architectural space.
Architectural space must be composed to ensure that the leader’s image dominates all the elements of the space, and that all the architectural components throw the leader’s image in bold relief. This will help people ot look up at the leader’s image at all times and inspire them with the pride and consciousness that they are happy in the leader’s embrace.
The architectural space for the leader’s image must be arranged most respectably and with the greatest weight. If wall lamps and various other furnishings are provided, the space will look crude and divert people’s attention from focussing on the leader’s image. This contradicts the requirement for giving prominence to the centre of architectural space.
It is important in highly praising the leader’s greatness to form grand monuments so as to let his revolutionary achievements be known to posterity.
Grand monuments are architectural creations, the main theme of which is the documentary content of the working-class leader’s revolutionary history.
The basic mission of grand monuments is to praise and convey to posterity the revolutionary cause and achievements of the working-class leader who pioneered the path of revolution and led it to victory. Representing the revolutionary history of the leader of the working classin philosophical depth is a sure guarantee for the incomparably great ideological and spiritual vitality of grand monuments as well as a profound ideological and aesthetic characteristic that distinguishes them from other monuments.
The character and value of an architectural structure are defined by the ideological quality of its content.
The content of grand, imperishable revolutionary monuments must be permeated with the leader’s greatness and supported with high ideological and artistic qualities. Ensuring this is the most important ideological and aesthetic requirement for the creation of grand revolutionary monuments; and this is the characteristic that distinguishes them from other structures.
Not only must the ideological content of grand monumental structures be revolutionary, vivid and truthful, but also their architectural form must agree with their content. In the creation of grand, imperishable revolutionary monumental structures, it is very important to explore and create to the best of our ability architectural forms that accord with the depth, breadth and value of their ideological content.
If a monument is to take on its genuine appearance as a monument, it must fully embody in itself its unique fonnative and structural qualities—monumental character, magnificence and dignity. These qualities compose the basic yardstick that measures the ideological and artistic values of grand monuments as well as the basic conditions for ensuring a high level of ideological and artistic interpretation of such monuments.
Grand monuments to the leader must stress magnificence in their form, in keeping with their rich and profound ideological content.
The magnificence of grand monuments is expressed, first of all, through unusually large size and vast numerical quantity. Magnificence is an aesthetic quality that is not only the most impressively visual of all the fonnative qualities of a monument but also arouses the vividest and strongest psychological and emotional interest. Large size is essential for a monument to the leader’s greatness as such, reflects its ideological content clearly and gives people a deep understanding of the leader’s achievements.
Magnificence is an aesthetic quality that gives people a profound feeling of the architectural fonnative feature of the monument in a vast architectural space. From this emanates the major requirement for the proper selection of the size of the grand monument.
The size of an architectural structure is of great significance in the creation of the form of the structure. No matter how profound and valuable the ideological content of an architectural structure may be, the structure will look shabby unless it acquires the size that accords with its ideological content. If an architectural structure is to show its magnificence and sublime quality in keeping with its ideological content, it must be of a considerably large size. The Monument on Lake Samji, the Tower of the Juche Idea and other grand monuments have been constructed in large sizes and with magnificence in accordance with their ideological content, so that they show our people’s loyalty to the great leader, their unfathomable strength, the might of our independent national economy and the development of science and technology in our country. If you erect an architectural structure mechanically in a large size in discord with its content simply because a large size expresses magnificence, you will lower its quality. In the course of creation of grand, imperishable revolutionary monuments, we must pay primary attention to their ideological content, and select the forms that accord with their content.
A grand monument should be larger than the structures that surround it. It needs a larger size because its ideological content is great and rich. Only when its size is commensurate with its ideological content can it acquire the proper quality of a grand monument.
The size of a grand monument must not only be in accord with its ideological content but must also harmonize with the surrounding space. The size presupposes artistic harmony, and artistic harmony is the standard for the selection of the size. A grand monument to the leader’s greatness must first be large-sized in view of both its ideological content and its architectural formation.
Because of its profound and rich ideological content, a grand monument is always placed in the centre of the architectural space. The central location makes the grand monument more conspicuous than the surrounding structures, and helps it play the leading role in the overall architectural formation.
The magnificence of a grand monument is expressed also through the three-dimensional composition of the architectural space of the monument. Three-dimensional quality is the basic means of expressing magnificence. It provides depth to the front of the grand monument, and the great frontal depth adds to the magnificence of the monument. The depth of a grand monument is not only a matter related to the expression of an architectural formation’s magnificence, but also the basic factor in expressing the leader’s greatness in greater depth by giving prominence to the ideological content and the form of the monument. A grand monument to the leader’s greatness must be formed through the great width and depth of the frontal axis.
Genuine three-dimensional quality can only be achieved by subordinating all the objects to and concentrating them on emphasizing the central theme and hannonizing their arrangement, to effect unity of fonnation.
A grand monument to the leader’s greatness must be formed on the basis of respect and dignity, because its main theme is the leader’s leadership achievements. Respect and dignity are the aesthetic qualities of architectural structures, which stimulate noble, sublime and lofty feelings. The dignity expressed by grand monuments arouses emotional interest among the people, stimulates deep thinking among them, has a lingering psychological effect upon them and enables them to acquire noble ideological feelings and self-respect.
To achieve the respect-filled and dignified formation of a grand monument, close attention must be paid to laying out the surrounding area. If the surrounding area is laid out in an awe¬ inspiring way, people will adjust their appearance and pose in a proper manner. Maintaining balance is particularly important in the imposing arrangement of the area surrounding a grand monument. Balance ensures the orderliness of the architectural formation and evokes a tranquil atmosphere. Balance is attained by symmetry. Symmetry is the external form and means of expressing the balance of shapes and weight as well as the prerequisite for attaining an atmosphere of respect.
Symmetrical fonnation of the area that surrounds a grand monument is a major means of laying out the area in a way that endows the monument with respect and dignity.
Symmetrical composition was made an iron rule in the formation of the area that surrounds the Tower of the Juche Idea, the monument to the immortal Juche idea, through the construction of high-rise apartment blocks which form a symmetrical background, through the erection of symmetrical pavilions in the spaces on both sides of the tower and through the setting up of symmetrical fountains in the mid-stream of the Taedong River in front of the tower. The magnificence and imposing quality of the Tower of the Juche Idea is supplemented and stressed by the symmetrical composition of the surrounding area.
A grand monument to the leader’s greatness represents his immortal idea, so it must strive for eternity.
Because grand monuments are made of ordinary materials, the lasting quality of the materials and their structural durability are the decisive guarantee of their longevity. Such grand monuments should be created by using durable materials and constructing durable structures through the introduction of techniques that can prevent weathering, and so meet the requirement for their longevity.
A grand monument to the leader’s greatness usually consists of the leader’s statue, a tower and group sculptures. In the fonnation of a grand monument, it is important to establish a proper relationship between the leader’s statue, the tower and the group sculptures. The leader’s statue always constitutes the main theme in the fonnation of a grand monument, and the tower and group sculptures are secondary themes that safeguard the leader’s statue and show his revolutionary achievements in depth and breadth. The secondary themes are indispensable components of the grand monument that support the main theme and throw it into bold relief.
Since the leader’s statue is the main theme of the grand monument, the basic problem in its formation is how to emphasize the statue so that it looks magnificent in people’s eyes. We can find a correct solution to this problem by deciding the appropriate heights of the statue and the tower, and their locations. If the tower is taller than the statue by too much, or if the statue is set too close to the tower, the statue will not look conspicuous, and people will get a strong impression of the overwhelming height of the tower. In that case the tower, not the leader’s statue, will be regarded as the main theme. This will result in an intolerable blunder in the formation of a grand monument. Although the leader’s statue and the tower must be in unity, the statue must be made to attract more attention because it is the main theme. This is the most important principle that must be observed in the architectural aspect of a grand monument.
Erecting the leader’s statue properly in a city is an important part of urban construction. Erecting it in a city means that the city itself has been developed under the leader’s plan and guidance, and as such it is important in singing the praises of the leader’s imperishable achievements. A magnificent and beautiful city is a grand epic picture and a lasting monument to the achievement of his leadership. Erecting the leader’s statue in cities is not only a lawful but also an essential requirement, as well as a principled requirement for the development of cities permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader.
When erecting the leader’s statue in a city, it is important to achieve a skilful formative effect to show how ardently the people respect the leader and how solidly they are united around him/ The location of the statue must first be selected properly and the ground must be formed skilfully. The location of the statue and the surrounding space are important factors in magnifying and concentrating the magnificence of the statue, and as such they are indispensable components of the formation of the statue. That is why the selection of the location in architecture is often regarded as an art in itself.
The leader’s statue must be erected in the best part of the heart of the city, where people can look up at it from every spot in the city, and as large a crowd as possible can gather. In addition, a structural composition system by which the statue occupies the centre of the city’s architectural space must be established. This is the basic condition for harmonizing all the city’s architectural space with the focus on the leader’s statue and ensuring that the statue plays the leading role in the architectural fonnation of the city.
Although it is desirable to locate the leader’s statue where many people gather, it should not be erected by the main street. A street is essentially a means of ensuring the passage of traffic. Therefore, it is contrary to the function of a street and the principle of architectural formation to lay out a space for a large crowd to stop for some time at the side of a street or create a quiet and solemn atmosphere there. If the leader’s statue is located by the main street, it may play an important role in the formation of the street, but it can play no more than a secondary, auxiliary role in the architectural formation of the city as a whole. This does not meet the purpose of erecting the leader’s statue in the city and also dwarfs the leader’s greatness. The statue should be located in the centre of the formation of the city, in a place where a wide space can be laid out to create a quiet and solemn atmosphere, and on the topographically central and highest eminence.
It is especially important in erecting the leader’s statue to lay out properly the space that surrounds the statue. The impact of any monument is inconceivable apart from the surrounding space. The surrounding space serves as the basis for the composition of the formative structure of the statue, as the means of expressing the character of the statue and as the guarantee for the completion of the fonnative image of the statue. In the formation of the surrounding space, therefore, the main consideration should be given to expressing the essential characteristics of the leader’s guidance. This is an important principle bearing on the composition of the space that surrounds the statue.
The revolution museum and revolutionary history museum, which systematically exhibit the imperishable achievements made by the leader of the working class, a theatre, a cinema, a house of culture and dwelling houses should be located in the space that surrounds the statue and a park should be laid out there to make the space the centre of ideological, cultural and emotional education. This is the way to give people a deep understanding of the leader’s greatness and his leadership achievements, and ensure that they always keenly feel that they are leading worthwhile lives in the embrace of the leader. It is not desirable to locate shops, restaurants and other service establishments in the space around the statue simply because such places usually bustle with people. Amusement parks also should not be located too close to the statue. Such parks would weaken the solemnity and awe-inspiring effect of the statue. Such parks would weaken the solemnity and awe-inspiring effect of the statue. Amusement parks located at a considerable distance from the statue will not interfere with the purpose of the statue, and will give people time and space to calm their excitement.
The fonnation of the centre of Pyongyang, the revolutionary capital, provides a good example of the erection of the leader’s statue with dignity at an ideal location. For the purpose of developing Pyongyang into a people’s city permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader, we erected the great leader’s statue on Mansu Hill, the highest hill in the heart of the city. In the surrounding area we built grand monuments and the Korean Revolution Museum that show the glorious path of the Korean revolution pioneered and led by the leader. Structurally, the grand monuments on both sides of the great leader’s statue safeguard it. Ideologically and artistically, they, in close unity with the leader’s statue, unfold a grand epic picture of his imperishable revolutionary achievements.
In order to keep the great leader’s statue on Mansu Hill in as good a state as possible, and in good view from any part of the central area of the capital city, we totally removed Somun Street, the old street that had existed between Mansu Hill and Namsan Hill, and laid out a grand fountain park and a lawn there to create an open space around the statue, and constructed the modern Mansudae Art Theatre in harmony with the surrounding view. In the Munsu area, across the Taedong River from Mansu Hill, a broad avenue has been constructed on the straight line of the central axis of the monument on Mansu Hill, and the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, Central Youth Hall and high-rise apartment blocks have been built on both sides of the avenue. As a result, the space that surrounds Mansu Hill is always bustling with crowds of people, and the heart of the city affords a grand view of our leader who leads the people, discussing state affairs with them, always among them.
The great leader’s statue erected on Mansu Hill, commanding a bird’s-eye view of Pyongyang, and the magnificent and beautiful streets and monumental structures of the capital that look as though they are applauding the statue, highlights the appearance of Pyongyang as the capital city where the leader resides, fully represents the unbreakable unity of our people who are united rock-solid behind the leader and their unanimous desire to hold him in high esteem for ever. It would be difficult to find a city anywhere so excellently built as our Pyongyang.
The setting of an example of developing a city permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader marked a new turning- point, at which a brilliant landmark was set up in the development of working-class architecture, a historic event that opened up a new era of human architecture.
Properly laying out the old revolutionary battlefields and the historical revolutionary sites is a honourable and worthwhile undertaking lauding the imperishable achievements of the working-class leader and making them shine down through generations.
Old revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites are places of historical significance associated with the leader’s revolutionary ideas and achievements. Greatly admiring the leader’s achievements in the struggle for human emancipation and making them shine down through generations is a noble mission based on the revolutionary obligation of the working class to their leader as well as an expression of their intense loyalty to the leader, their desire to hold him in high esteem. The revolutionary battlefields and the historical revolutionary sites are the eternal treasure of the country and nation. They are of the greatest significance for equipping the people with the glorious revolutionary traditions established by the leader and for encouraging them to accomplish the revolutionary cause of the working class pioneered by the leader.
Even in the complex situation today, when the imperialists and reactionaries are stepping up their vicious manoeuvres against socialism more than ever, our people are accelerating the building of socialism without the slightest vacillation under the revolutionary banner of Juche, under the banner of socialism. We can say that this is because we have preserved the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites associated with the imperishable achievements of the great leader as excellent bases for education in the revolutionary traditions, tirelessly conducted ideological education through them and solidly equipped the people politically and ideologically. The revolution continues, and one generation is replaced by another ceaselessly. Therefore, properly laying out the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites is one of the most important tasks of the working-class party.
Erecting the leader’s statue properly is a basic principle in the layout of the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites. The leader’s statue is the main theme of the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites as well as the basic means of their characterization. The leader’s statue must be located in the best places on the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites, which bear the imperishable traces of the leader.
In the selection of the location for the leader’s statue, magnificence and artistic harmony should not be the main considerations. If the statue is located mainly with an eye to the artistic aspect, the statue may be erroneously erected outside the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites. This will give the people a distorted understanding of these historical sites and make it impossible to perform the mission of ideological education correctly. This tendency must be strictly guarded against in laying out the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites. When laying out the historical revolutionary site on Mt. Wangjae, some architects proposed that the grand monument be erected on a neighbouring peak because the summit of Mt. Wangjae was too narrow to lay out a plaza to be used for educational purposes. If the great leader’s statue had been erected on the neighbouring peak, the visitors might have taken the peak for that of Mt. Wangjae, the curator might have found it difficult to explain the situation, and the grand monument might have been the last spot visited on tours of the historical site. That is why the leader’s bronze statue was erected on the side of Mt. Wangjae.
Erecting the monument close to the historical site is the basic principle of locating the monument.
A monument inscribed with the pertinent historical details should be erected in front of each grand monument. These are lasting historical monuments that bear witness to the leader’s imperishable achievements associated with the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites. They give the visitors a clear understanding of the leader’s achievements associated with the historical revolutionary sites even without explanations by curators, and clearly show the purpose of erecting the grand monuments. They play not only the roles of guides to the revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites, but also the roles of educators.
In laying out a revolutionary battlefield or historical revolutionary sites, the principle of preserving the original state and the original location must be strictly observed.
Respecting their original state makes it possible to represent the leader’s great leadership realistically, and as such it accords not only with the purpose of laying them out but also with historical principles. Revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites should be laid out in a simple, clean and cosy manner by preserving the concrete environment where the great historical event took place.
In the care for revolutionary battlefields and historical revolutionary sites the tendency to urbanization and the development of parks must be strictly guarded against. This tendency contradicts the principle of preserving their original state. It makes it impossible not only to show their original state but also acquire an ample knowledge of the sagacity of the leader’s guidance and his noble virtues.
The principle of preserving their original state is an important guarantee for developing them into sites of education in revolutionary traditions and making the leader’s greatness and his imperishable achievements shine more brightly and be remembered for a longer period of time.
Fully realizing the plan of the successor to the leader for architectural creation is of special significance in imbuing architecture with the revolutionary outlook on the leader.
Architectural creation is a gigantic undertaking to transform nature. It is not finished in a year or two, but is carried on for a long time even in communist society. The guidance and plan of the working-class leader for architectural creation is carried forward and fully tealized by his true successor.
The successor sets a life-long task of safeguarding the working- class leader’s long-range plan for building a communist paradise and his imperishable achievements, and making them shine more brightly down through generations. In carrying out this noble task, the work of architectural creation plays a very great role. For this reason, the successor pays great attention to architectural creation and guides it under his direct control.
Realizing the successor’s leadership and plan for architectural creation is the basic guarantee for safeguarding and carrying out the leader’s plan and for fully developing working-class architecture in keeping with the leader’s intention.
Architects must have a correct understanding of the role of the leader’s successor in architectural creation, and work hard to carry out the successor’s plan.
For an architect to equip himself solidly with the revolutionary outlook on the leader is an important guarantee for the creation of architecture permeated with the revolutionary outlook on the leader.
Architects directly undertake the work of architectural creation.
Success in architectural creation depends on the architect’s technical qualifications and creative skill. But the decisive factor in this work is his world outlook. No matter how high the level of his technical qualifications and creative skill may be, the architect cannot create architecture in keeping with the people’s aspirations and demands unless he has acquired the revolutionary outlook on the world. Only those architects who have acquired the revolutionary outlook on the world can successfully create architectural structures of the Party, of the working class and of the people.
An architectural structure reflects the architect’s world outlook, as his world outlook acts on the whole process of his creative work, ranging from the understanding of reality and designing to its implementation. For architects to arm themselves firmly with the revolutionary world outlook is the decisive guarantee for the development of architecture. They must firmly adopt the revolutionary outlook on the leader and actively contribute to realizing his plan correctly and thereby making architecture develop.
We Must Create Architecture in Our Own Style
Architecture, a product of social history, assumes a national character as well as a social and a class character. There is no super-national architecture, just as there is no super-class architecture. Since architecture assumes a national character, each country and each nation creates architecture in keeping with the specific situation of that country and the characteristics of that nation.
We must create architecture in our own style.
Creating architecture in our own style means establishing the Juche orientation in architectural creation. This means, in other words, creating architecture to suit the specific situation in our country, its natural, geographic and climatic conditions, and our people’s sentiments, customs and tastes.
Architecture in our own style means precisely the architecture of Juche. Creating architecture in the interests of the revolution in one’s country and to meet the aspirations and demands of one’s people is an important principle that should be firmly maintained in the creation of Juche architecture.
Architecture reflects the requirements of the revolution and construction, and these requirements are the basis of architectural creation. Revolution and construction are carried out within the unit of a nation-state, and the task of revolution, the level of social development and the social requirements vary with the country. Even in the same country, different tasks arise at different stages of the revolution.
Different revolutionary tasks and different levels of social progress raise different requirements in the field of architectural creation. In countries with underdeveloped industry, the major requirement is to put efforts into industrial construction to lay the foundations of independent national industries; in countries with low living standards, the major requirement is to pay attention to the construction of light industries, and housing, cultural and welfare construction. On the basis of the requirements for revolution and construction, each country defines the general direction, the goals and objects for different stages of architectural creation, and sets out the principles and methods of creation. Architecture actively serves the development of revolution and construction in a given country, and provides preconditions for them.
Architecture reflects the natural and geographical conditions of a given country. Originally, architecture was created to give people protection from the elements. Therefore, atmospheric conditions are a major factor that characterizes architectural forms, scales and structures. The natural and geographical environmental conditions define the utility, and the formative and artistic qualities of architecture, which are its essential qualities. When architecture reflects the natural and geographical conditions correctly, it provides a better guarantee for its utility, and fonnative and artistic qualities.
Natural and geographical conditions, that is, climatic and geological conditions, vary from country to country, and from region to region. It is sultry and moist in some countries, and cold and dry in others. Some countries are mountainous, and others are flat. There can be no set type of architecture that suits every variety of natural and geographical conditions. In a country where there is much rain and snow and in a country where the weather is cold and the wind blows hard, the utility of architecture can be ensured by careful formation of roofing and skilful composition of wall structures in keeping with the climatic conditions. In a mountainous region, the fonnative and artistic qualities of architecture can be enhanced by construction in harmony with the features of the terrain. Whether or not architectural structures have been created to suit the natural and geographical conditions of one’s own country is a major criterion for evaluating whether or not the type of architecture is of one’s own style.
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Since ancient times, our country has been celebrated worldwide as a land of beautiful mountains and rivers. We must construct beautiful buildings and excellent towns and cities to develop our most beautiful country into an earthly paradise.
Architecture reflects the people’s customs, sentiments, ideological and aesthetic requirements, and tastes. A nation is formed in the course of the lives of its people as a social community. The nation acquires its own customs and way of life. The customs and way of life assume distinct national and class characters, and are affected by the people’s ideology. The customs and way of life vary with the nation and the social class. The way of life clearly expresses the characteristics of the times and social system.
Because of its utility, architecture reflects the customs and way of life of the nation and class of a particular country. The architecture of the working class reflects a new mode of life based on the socialist system, in which all the working people work together and live in hannony as masters of the country. The architecture of the bourgeoisie reflects the bourgeois way of life of the exploitative society based on the law of the jungle and ultra¬ egoism which does not care a straw whether others starve or not so long as oneself is well-off.
The under-floor heating of dwelling houses originated and has developed from the customs of our people who are used to sitting on the floor in everyday life, whereas heating by means of a fireplace originated and has developed from the customs of Western people who are not used to sitting on the floor.
The work of architectural creation must be firmly based on one’s own country and carried out by relying on the efforts, wisdom and technical skills of one’s own people, and fully ensure the comfort of the masses.
Juche architecture reflects the customs, sentiments and way of life of our nation and our people. Juche architecture is the type of architecture that was created to meet the requirements of the revolution and construction in keeping with the sentiments and aesthetic tastes of our nation, and the specific situation and the natural and geographical conditions of our country.
In order to create architecture of our own style, we must, before all else, embody the socialist content in the national fonn of architectural creation. Being national in form and socialist in content is the major characteristic of Juche architecture.
The socialist content of architecture is precisely the architectural requirement of the working masses. Because the architecture of the working class is for the masses, the architectural requirement of the working class is the requirement of the masses. The components of the socialist content can only be genuine when they accord with the characteristics of one’s country and nation. The architectural requirement of the working masses is based on the national characteristics. Because the socialist content assumes a national character, the form as a means of realizing the content bears a national character. Both the form and the content of working-class architecture assume a national character. Ensuring the national form and the socialist content of architecture fully accords with the working-class principle of architectural creation and requirement for creating architecture in its own style, and is an important way of finding a successful solution to the problem. A perfect expression of socialist content in national form in architecture can ensure architectural creation that is liked by one’s nation and the masses, and makes it possible to develop architecture in one’s own style.
An important aspect of embodying the socialist content in architecture is that the architect should first equip himself with the revolutionary world outlook and firmly maintain the people’s standpoint in architectural creation. That is because all the components of socialist content are selected and incorporated in architecture by the architect. Only when the architect is fully equipped with the Juche architectural idea and theory, and has a high level of scientific and technical knowledge and artistic talent can he successfully embody socialist content in architecture. No matter how revolutionary and varied the requirements of life in objective reality may be, it will be impossible for the architect to embody socialist content in architecture unless his ideological standpoint is unshakable and the level of his political views and qualifications is high.
Another important aspect of embodying socialist content in architecture is to establish a correct relationship between the elements of the architectural content. None of the elements of the content should be totally ignored or considered absolute. The rationality of the architectural function of ensuring a high quality of life, structural rationality, and the ideological and artistic qualities of architectural structures should all be sustained in keeping with their aim.
In embodying socialist content in architecture, the elements of architectural content should not be composed on an equal basis. They should be dealt with according to the aim of the structures to be constructed. For example, in the creation of structures such as monuments their ideological content should be given priority.
Forming architectural space in keeping with one’s people’s customs and the needs of their lives as well as for their maximum convenience is the basic requirement for embodying socialist content in architecture. The basic purpose of architectural construction is to create space for human life and activity, and provide the rational conditions for the performance of the dwelling function so as to enhance material utility and ensure excellent living conditions.
It is very important in the formation of architectural space to compose space for the convenience of human life and activity, arrange space rationally, establish a correct relationship between its components, and ensure a hygienic and healthy environment.
The rational solution to the problem of the dwelling function of architectural space creates material conditions for the people to make more effective contributions to the revolution and construction, and ensures convenience in their lives.
In order to find a rational solution to the problem of the dwelling function, it is imperative to study the people’s lives closely and take all the problems of their lives into consideration. In other words, the space for the performance of the dwelling function should be composed by defining the size of the architectural space needed, setting the size of furniture and other facilities to the procedure of their actions and movements, taking measures to prevent pollution for the sake of the people’s hygiene and health, and considering specific social conditions, building conditions and various other limiting conditions.
An important factor in finding a correct solution to the problem of the dwelling function is for architects to have ample knowledge of science and a high level of skill. If they are to make correct calculations of the scope of people’s actions and movements, they need the knowledge of people’s physical constitutions. If they are to reflect people’s psychological characteristics, they need a knowledge of psychology. To decide on the size of a room, they must have a knowledge of size planning; to find a solution to the problem of a rational architectural space for hygiene and health, they need a knowledge of environmental engineering, ecology, meteorology, illumination, acoustics, thermoengineering, ventilation and various other branches of science as well as the expertise to apply this knowledge. An architect must be versed in many branches of science and technology, and the trends of their development, and possess the knowledge and ability to apply various kinds of technical means in a unified manner.
When the dwelling function of a structure is simple and independent, the composition of its space is simple and the composition of its shape is clear, but when the function is complex and its elements are interrelated, the composition of the space and shape is also complex.
An architect must have ample knowledge of the characteristics of the life of his nation and pay close attention to organizing architectural space so that it is convenient and efficient.
An important task in composing architectural space for people’s convenience is to create the best hygienic environment for promoting people’s health and make their lives more comfortable.
To this end, a pleasant atmosphere must pervade the architectural space. Reasonable temperature, humidity, and ventilation must be provided for the architectural space so that the occupants always live and work in pleasant conditions. This is most important.
It is also important in creating a hygienic and healthy environment to provide against excessively hot and cold weather by using appropriate building materials, but it is more important to create the optimum living conditions artificially by using modem architectural equipment, instead of only creating the living space or modifying the environment to protect people from adverse weather conditions. In view of the widespread use of modern architectural equipment, it is necessary to explore new methods of defining the size of the architectural space in keeping with the rational, artificial weather conditions and improving its quality.
A rational solution to the problem of meeting the requirements for the dwelling function has no small effect on the formation of the occupants’ way of life. The noble, cultured and revolutionary way of socialist life requires appropriate architectural space, and a reasonable solution to the problem of architectural space influences the establishment of the socialist way of life.
Another important aspect of solving the problem of dwelling architectural space is to compose the space to encourage people to develop the habit of living frugally, neatly, culturally and in a modern way. For the creation of architectural structures that truly serve the people, it is necessary to ensure a reasonable dwelling function and adorn it artistically. A good architectural form satisfies people’s aesthetic demands as well as their dwelling function requirements. Architectural structures are closely related to people’s everyday lives, and affect their spiritual lives too. Therefore, the architect must not be preoccupied exclusively with the solution to the problem of the dwelling function, but pay necessary attention to meeting people’s aesthetic needs.
The function of architectural structures in ensuring dwelling convenience is not static. In socialist society, the progress in the people’s life style makes new and higher demands on the architectural dwelling function. In the creation of Juche architecture, we must promptly grasp the demands of the progress in people’s life styles, and resolve the problem of the architectural dwelling function so as to meet these demands. Since it is impossible to change the supporting structures and shapes of the buildings that have already been constructed, we must renew the indoor structures in keeping with the requirements of the dwelling function, and steadily replace indoor furnishings and technical equipment on the basis of the development of science and technology to moderni z e the indoor living conditions.
Human thoughts, feelings, aspirations and demands are always concrete and real, so architecture too must be concrete and real. If seemingly trifling things like a towel hanger or a soap holder are omitted when providing a house with a bathroom, or if hot-water under-floor heating is arranged in a house without taking into consideration the feelings of old people who like warm floors and the feelings of young people who like cool floors, it may cause the residents serious discomfort. It would be impossible, however, to meet every minor demand. It is impossible to satisfy all the individual demands of the many people who live and work in the same architectural space. Take a door, for example. Tall people want the door handle fixed high, and short people want it low. If all those demands were to be satisfied, ten handles for each door would not meet the purpose. Architecture must reflect the essential and common demands of the people.
Architecture must also meet the aesthetic feelings and tastes of one’s people, one’s nation.
Architecture is valuable when it meets the aesthetic aspirations and demands of our contemporaries.
In order to create beauty capable of satisfying these aspirations and demands, architecture must represent the noble spiritual world of the people of our times who support the working-class leader with loyalty, the revolutionary mettle of our people who, under the leadership of the Party, stoutly advance toward the ultimate victory of socialism and communism, their unshakable confidence in victory and unbreakable revolutionary spirit expressed in their unyielding advance under the banner of revolution whatever wind may blow.
The beauty of socialist architecture is a beauty that requires, above all else, intense loyalty to the Party, the leader and the revolution. The beauty of socialist architecture is the most valuable and glorious of all beauty. The people regard architecture that fully reflects loyalty to the Party, the leader and the revolution as the most beautiful and best in the world.
To create beauty that meets the masses’ aesthetic aspirations and demands, architects must explore and create new, original and idiomatic forms of architecture, and innovate the formative, artistic quality of architecture. The creation of new, original and idiomatic architectural forms is a reflection of the aesthetic aspirations of the masses, who oppose the outmoded and backward and always like the new and advanced. It is a reflection of the modem aesthetic feelings of the people of the new age and the requirement of their lives, which are growing richer all the time.
In order to create new and idiomatic architecture capable of satisfying the aesthetic feelings of one’s nation, architects must have a correct understanding of the various shapes and colours in the natural world and the beautiful qualities of a variety of formative phenomena in nature, and creatively apply them to architecture. The shapes in the natural world and a variety of fonnative natural phenomena serve as a rich source of materials needed for the creation of architectural shapes which are useful for and meet the demands of the people’s lives as well as their aesthetic aspirations. When the beautiful qualities of these shapes and formative phenomena are related to human aesthetic ideals and perceived as such, they are recognized as meeting their aesthetic demands. Architects must make proper use of the shapes and formative phenomena in nature to elaborate their ideas and plans.
Artificial shapes, too, must be actively applied to the creation of new architectural shapes. Artificial shapes, as objective existence, have a certain degree of aesthetic and emotional influence on people. They are products of the people’s creative work, and as such they reflect the people’s subjective intentions and aesthetic requirements. In the composition of architectural shapes, natural and artificial shapes must not be mechanically imitated in disregard of a building’s dwelling function and structural rationality. The mechanical imitation of natural shapes invites irrationality of the dwelling function, deforms architectural shapes and degrades architecture into “naturalistic architecture” and “organic-body architecture”. Architects must create new, original and idiomatic architecture that meets the people’s aesthetic aspirations and modem aesthetic sense by adhering to the creative principles and methods of the formation of Juche architecture.
Architectural structures must be durable as well as convenient. Durability is the practical condition for guaranteeing the life-span of architectural structures; it provides the material guarantee for secure human life and activity. The durability of structures is ensured by their rationality. The framework of a structure fonns the shape of its architectural space, and the architectural space exists within the framework. Without a framework, there can be neither architectural space nor architectural shape. The shape of architectural space is composed and constantly maintained by the framework. The framework forms the skeleton of the structure, and a rational structure guarantees the life-span of its skeleton.
The framework of a village or a city plays the role of its skeleton, not only characterizing its overall appearance and quality but also guaranteeing its life-span. The framework of a village or a city comprises the division into areas, the layout of its central part, the network of streets, and the location of buildings, parks, pleasure grounds and gardens.
The framework of a structure is closely related to the rationality of its function of facilitating everyday activities, and these two factors develop by acting upon each other. The frameworks of architectural structures vary, depending on the available building materials, and develop through the application of new building materials which are steadily developed. In the early days, natural materials like wood, stone, earth and lime were used for the frameworks of structures. With the development of iron, cement, concrete, sheet glass and other things, however, the frameworks of architectural structures and shapes acquired a greater variety. Nowadays, new frameworks such as three-dimensional truss structure, thin-sheet structure and line structure have been developed to provide the freedom of fonning large spaces for living convenience without the use of pillars. This means the scientific and technological possibilities of creating a variety of architectural shapes, free from the stereotyped shapes of the past.
Structural shapes should be composed to meet not only the requirements of structural dynamics but also people’s aesthetic demands. If one ignores the aesthetic demands, one will fall into the tendency of structuralism. The reactionary nature of structuralism is that it emasculates the ideological and artistic character of architecture by claiming that skilful structural composition naturally makes a structure beautiful.
An important matter in the external composition of structures is to clearly sustain the composition and structural systems; failure to sustain them will result in the failure to ensure modernity, and will lose the truth fulness and logic of structural expression. The result will be a waste of large amounts of labour and materials. Architects must guard strictly against the tendency to form external shapes contrary to the structural and compositional systems, on the excuse of creating a variety of architectural shapes.
Increasing the economic effect in the composition of architectural structures is an important matter. In view of the fact that structural expense occupies a large share of the total cost of construction, close attention must be paid to prevent the creation of excessive structural reserves on the grounds of ensuring structural safety and other wasteful practices.
Architects must work hard to develop frameworks that are capable of ensuring durable, safe, economical and rapid construction. They must also evolve methods of assembling modem structures, and invent more durable, light and pliable materials and fire-proof and weather-proof structural materials.
The key to creating the architecture of our own style is to be versed in our own things.
A good knowledge of our own things inspires architects with national dignity and revolutionary confidence, and enables them to display all their revolutionary enthusiasm and creativity in the work of architectural creation, resolve all problems arising in this work in keeping with the specific situation in our country, and create architecture to meet our people’s demands. The basic task in becoming conversant with our own things is to study the policy of our Party. Its policy is the standard and yardstick of architectural creation. It covers everything—the general line of building socialism and communism, the basic line of socialist construction, industrial policy, capital construction policy and agricultural policy. Our Party’s policy reflects the keynote of the requirements for the revolution and construction, our people’s aspirations and the specific situation of our country. Because architecture has the basic mission of contributing to the revolution and construction, we can only correctly define the direction of architectural creation and establish the creative principles and method correctly when we rely on the Party’s policy. Architects must strive to master the Party’s policy. A good knowledge of the Party’s policy is the source of strength to lead architectural creation to success. A good knowledge of the Party’s policy will make it possible to find the scientific way of solving problems in architectural creation however difficult they are, to meet the demands of the revolution and construction, and deal with them on one’s own initiative in keeping with the Party’s aims. If architects are well versed in the Party’s policy, they can carry out the work of architectural creation without any deviation; but if they are ignorant of it, they cannot distinguish between right and wrong, and cannot tackle every detail with confidence. An architect who is ignorant of the Party’s policy is a blind architect. Such an architect may commit the mistake of sycophancy, dogmatism and the tendency to return to the past.
A good knowledge of the Party’s policy is necessary for the creation of architecture in keeping with the requirements of the revolution and construction, and also for championing the Party’s policy itself.
In the difficult days after the war, when not a single whole brick was available, the anti-Party, counterrevolutionary elements who were entrenched in responsible posts in the construction industry dogmatically adopted foreign design standards and regulations, which were unsuited to our situation, by ignoring the specific situation of our country, our people’s demands and our national characteristics. They did tremendous harm to the work of architectural creation. If the architects had had a clear knowledge of the Party’s policy, they could have prevented the machinations of the anti-Party, counterrevolutionary elements at that time and the waste of large amounts of materials, funds and labour.
Being fully conversant with the Party’s policy in architecture and striving to reflect its requirements should be the basic stance of an architect. An architect working with this attitude can create any structure no matter how difficult, in keeping with the Party’s requirements. Architects must make a deep study of the Party’s policy within their sphere and establish the habit of carrying out the work of architectural creation on this basis.
All architects must equip themselves solidly with the immortal Juche idea and study all our Party’s lines and policies, its embodiment, and the theory of Juche architecture deeply and in a comprehensive way. They must deeply imbibe these principles and make them their sole guidelines for architectural creation.
A good knowledge of the history, geography, economy and culture of his country, and of the customs of his people is indispensable for an architect in creating architecture in his nation’s own style. The history, geography, economy and culture of one’s country is the source of one’s national pride and dignity, which are the soil on which to make architecture in one’s own style bloom. An architect who is convinced that his country and his things are the best will not look up to foreign things or try to copy them, but make tireless efforts to create architecture amenable to his people.
Architecture must be created on the basis of one’s own things. Architectural structures that are not erected on one’s own soil cannot be called one’s own things; and those erected on one’s own soil by one’s own efforts cannot be called things of other people. Architecture must essentially be created on one’s own land by the efforts of one’s own people and on the strength of one’s own economy. The land of one’s own country is the soil in which architecture can strike root; the strength of one’s own people and one’s own economy is the spiritual and material means of erecting architectural structures. A good knowledge of the geography and the level of economic development of one’s country enables the architect to draw up land, urban and rural construction plans scientifically and realistically, distribute production areas rationally, and correctly define the direction and objects of architectural creation.
An architect must also have a good knowledge of the history and culture of his country. Since ancient times our people have been courageous, resourceful and intelligent. Our people have unyieldingly fought aggressors and defended their country for 5,000 years and demonstrated intense love of their country, courage and unbreakable spirit to the whole world. Our people have also created a brilliant national culture, and developed science and technology since ancient times. Our ancestors erected Chomsongdae, the world-famous astronomical observatory, already in the first half of the 7 th century, developed meteorological and astronomical techniques and invented and developed the first metal type in the world. Architecture, metallurgy and the technique of ceramics became world-famous in the period of the Three Kingdoms. In our country now, under the wise leadership of our Party, literature, art, physical culture and sports, architecture and all the other fields of culture have rapidly developed and entered a period of full flowering. Our arts have become renowned as “arts of the highest level in the world”, and our country is famous as a “land of architecture” and a “land of creation”.
Our architects must create the architecture of our own style that makes an active contribution to modelling the whole of society on the Juche idea by displaying the Korean-nation-first spirit and the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, record our age in human history as the great heyday of Juche architecture and contribute to enriching the world’s treasure house of architecture.
Party Loyalty, Working-Class Loyalty and Loyalty to the People Must Be Embodied in Architectural Creation
Socialist communist architecture is for the Party, for the working class and for the people in that it serves the Party and the revolution, the working class and the people. Loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people is the hallmark of socialist- communist architecture. It is the touchstone that distinguishes socialist architecture from capitalist architecture. This is the basic principle that must be consistently maintained in architectural creation. Embodying loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people means reflecting their requirements and creating architecture that serves them. Apart from loyalty to them, it is impossible to talk about Juche architecture. Only when the principle of loyalty to them is adhered to in architectural creation is it possible to create revolutionary and people-orientated architecture that can truly contribute to ensuring the masses’ independent and creative lives. Embodying loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people in architectural creation is the intrinsic requirement of socialist-communist architecture.
Party loyalty, working-class loyalty and loyalty to the people are in organic unity in Juche architecture. Loyalty to the Party intensively and fully embodies the architectural demands of the working class and the people, and loyalty to the working class and loyalty to the people can be fully displayed when loyalty to the Party is thoroughly embodied in architecture. Loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people is motivated by the single aim of creating architecture that truly serves the masses in their independent and creative lives. The principle of loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people is the basic guarantee for creating revolutionary architecture in keeping with the intrinsic nature of socialist and communist society. It fully ensures the leadership of the Party and the leader of the working class in the field of architectural creation and the successful realization of the leader’s plans and aims, so that architecture truly contributes to the goal of providing the masses with independent and creative lives.
The major requirement of socialist and communist society in the field of architecture is to fully reflect the masses’ demands for independent and creative lives in architecture. These demands can be satisfied by adhering to the principle of loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people in architectural creation. It is only when this principle is consistently maintained in architectural creation that all the edifices that are constructed throughout the period of building socialism and communism can satisfy the people, cater to the sentiments of the nation and be in accord with the natural and climatic conditions of the country.
Juche architecture embodies Party loyalty to the fullest. Party loyalty is the lifeblood of Juche architecture. The revolutionary essence, class character, social function and mission of Juche architecture are inconceivable apart from Party loyalty. The Party loyalty of Juche architecture finds expression in fully ensuring the leadership of the Party and the leader of the working class in architectural creation, in regarding the leader’s plans and aims as absolute and implementing them without any question in architectural creation. It also finds expression in creating architecture on the highest level to enhance the leader’s greatness and achievements down through generations. The architectural plan of the working-class leader is a great blueprint for developing the urban and rural communities into a magnificent, beautiful, and cosy socialist and communist paradise, and providing the people with rich and civilized living conditions. The leader’s guidance of architectural creation means leadership to carry out the great blueprint with success. His plan incorporates the architectural aspirations and demands of the Party, the working class and the people. The working-class leader formulates the idea and theory of socialist and communist architectural creation, clearly indicates the direction and method of implementing them at each stage of the revolution and construction, and wisely leads the architects to the creation of Juche-orientated, revolutionary architecture. Loyal support for his leadership is the prerequisite for the creation of architecture that truly serves the Party, the working class and the people, namely, architecture for the Party, for the working class and for the people.
Loyalty to the leader is the basic guarantee for effecting his leadership and for translating his plans into reality. Success in architectural creation is achieved through the struggle of the architects and construction workers who support his leadership. Only when they acquire a deep understanding of his revolutionary architectural ideas and theories, and implement them without the slightest deviation, can they ensure the flowering of the great garden of socialist-communist architecture, and build magnificent, beautiful, and cosy villages, towns and cities that are good to live in.
The leader unified leadership of architectural creation must be put into effect. This is the basic factor that affects the destiny and success of Juche architecture. His unified leadership of architectural creation not only ensures that his architectural ideas pervade the sphere of architectural creation and that socialist- communist architecture capable of contributing to the revolutionary cause of the working class, the revolutionary cause of the leader, is successfully created, but also makes it possible to reject all the counterrevolutionary architectural ideological trends and champion the Party character, working-class character and the people’s character of Juche architecture. We must establish the system of the leader’s unified leadership in all units of architectural creation, regard his architectural ideas as the sole guideline for architectural creation, and work hard to put them into practice.
The working-class loyalty of Juche architecture finds expression in fully meeting the demands of the working class in the field of architecture. Fundamentally, architecture reflects the demands of a particular class and represents their interests. Juche architecture thoroughly champions and realizes the interests of the working class by correctly and deeply reflecting their requirements and rejecting any non-working-class elements. The working class, which has the historic mission of building communist society, the ideal society for mankind, requires revolutionary and people- orientated architecture that provides the masses with independent and creative lives, and struggles to meet these requirements. The architectural requirements of the working class fully incorporate the requirements of the masses. We must ensure that architecture reflects the advantages of the people-centred socialism of our own style, and thus strengthen the working-class character of architecture and create Juche architecture that actively serves the masses.
We must clearly establish the working-class line in architectural creation. This means, in short, thoroughly championing and realizing the interests and demands of the working class and creating all architectural structures on this basis. In the creation of working-class architecture, the aspirations and demands of the working class should be unconditionally realized both in tenns of utility and ideological and artistic qualities, without tolerating any non-working-class, bourgeois element. The working-class line is the yardstick that distinguishes what is revolutionary from what is counterrevolutionary, what is progressive from what is reactionary, and what is people-orientated from what is against the people. The working-class line demarcates the working class and the capitalist class, the socialist ideology and the capitalist ideology, and makes it possible to champion and realize the interests and demands of the working class in architectural creation.
Juche architecture fully embodies loyalty to the people. Loyalty to the people is the essential feature of Juche architecture that serves the masses. Juche architecture is loved by the people not only because its content reflects the people’s aspirations and demands, but also because its form meets the people’s ideological and aesthetic demands and accords with the sentiments, emotions and tastes of the nation. Juche architecture provides the material and spiritual guarantee for the people’s independent and creative lives. The lives of the people in the age of independence, who have emerged as masters of the world and shape their destiny independently and creatively, the lives of the working people in socialist society, who speed up the revolution and construction as true masters of the country, are extremely varied and rich. Juche architecture actively serves the masses by truthfully reflecting and fully meeting the requirements of these varied and rich lives of the working people.
Creating three-dimensional architectural space for the people’s living requirements and activities is the major premise for realizing loyalty to the people in all aspects of architecture. Because socialist and communist society regards the masses as the most precious beings in the world, it places them at the centre of all consideration, and puts everything at their service. In socialist and communist society, all the architectural structures that serve the masses are considered to be the homes of their lives and activities, and should be handed down through generations, rather than mere means of production or of living convenience. From this point of view, we require that the inside and outside of factories should be laid out neatly. Regarding the architectural structures to be used by the masses as mere means of production or of living convenience is a bourgeois point of view. Architects must have a correct outlook on the masses. Whether or not the architectural aspirations and demands of the masses are fully reflected in architecture depends on the architects’ outlook on the masses. The correct outlook on the masses is the basis and basic factor in creating architecture for the masses. The people- orientated outlook is the prerequisite for the creation of architectural structures for the masses. The masses are the independent makers of history. They occupy the position of masters in historical development and play the role of masters. All the work of transforming nature and society is carried out by the masses. Because of the demands of their material and economic life and their aspirations to maintain and develop social life, the masses have a vital interest in architectural creation. They have the knowledge, technical skill, talents and strength needed for architectural creation, the great work of transforming nature. The work of architectural creation is an undertaking for their own good and to be carried out by themselves. In socialist society, the masses take an active part in architectural creation, and the state of the working class encourages them to do so. The viewpoint that the masses are the masters of architecture is the absolutely correct outlook on the masses; Juche architecture is created on the basis of this viewpoint. This is precisely the reason why Juche architecture is the most people-orientated form of architecture. Because Juche architecture regards the masses as the masters of architectural creation, their requirements and aspirations are the sole standard, yardstick and goal of architectural creation.
Architects must always mix closely with the masses, to study their lives in detail and grasp their architectural demands. This is the way to create architecture in keeping with their aspirations and demands. A genuine process of architectural creation is the process of acquiring ample knowledge of the lives of the masses, correctly reflecting it in design and putting it into creative practice. An architect’s ideological intentions and creative skill alone are not nough to ensure success in architectural creation. These are no more than the subjective factors in architectural creation, and these factors must be supported by the masses’ aspirations and demands, the benchmark of architectural creation. Only the architect who has a good knowledge of the masses’ aspirations and demands can create people-orientated architecture.
When multi-storeyed apartment blocks were constructed for the first time in our country in the postwar days, the Russian-type heating system, which our people were not used to, was introduced in the flats mainly because the architects ignored our people’s customs and their demands. At that time, the great leader paid a visit to some of the flats and found that the people did not like the heating system. He sternly criticized the officials for their dogmatic creative attitude and made sure that under-floor heating was provided for multi-storeyed apartment houses, as the people demanded. This was the origin of under-floor heating for multi¬ storeyed apartment blocks. It can be said that this was a great change in housing construction.
Architects should listen to the opinions of the people not only when designing but also after the design has been put into effect. The masses are the true critics of architecture. They examine and evaluate architectural structures by the standard of their aspirations and demands. Architectural structures that have passed the people’s test are really good ones, and vice versa.
The great leader has said that what the people say is good is good. Architects must not think that this instruction applies only to architectural structures that have been completed. They must always mix with the people, delve into their lives and acquire the revolutionary creative attitude and the habit of people-orientated creation, the habit of reflecting the people’s demands in architecture. Only then can they effect a new change in architectural creation. We must encourage the masses to take an active part in the work of architectural creation. The masses are the wisest, most intelligent, talented and learned of all. They are the true creators and enjoyers of architecture. Their active participation in the work of architectural creation is a prerequisite for emphasizing the people’s character of architecture as well as a sure guarantee for the rapid development of architecture. We must adopt various methods such as the masses’ joint evaluation or assessment of draft design plans and make it a rule to assemble their opinions, analyze them, sum them up and incorporate them in architecture.
We must safeguard the purity of Juche architecture. Safeguarding its purity is an important aspect of the work of realizing Party loyalty, working-class loyalty and loyalty to the people’s demands. In order to safeguard its purity we must resolutely combat all the architectural trends of bourgeois formalism. The architecture of bourgeois formalism does not regard the content of architecture as the unity of the requirements of utility and those of ideological aesthetics, but regards the content as utility and the form as beauty and outward appearance. It thus separates the content from the fonn, distorts them and subordinates the content to the form, being biased towards external embellishment. It shuts its eyes to convenience and makes outward appearance grotesque, or embellishes it fantastically to spread the bourgeois way of life by means of sensational and ostentatious embellishment that attracts people’s attention. Formalistic architecture that reflects the decadent aesthetic tastes of the bourgeoisie is tainted and eccentric. Fonnalistic bourgeois architecture is reactionary architecture that is incompatible with Juche architecture. It is anti-popular architecture that obliterates the national characteristics of architecture, and leads architecture to cosmopolitanism, to an architecture without nationality. The fonnalistic architecture of the bourgeoisie is the most decadent and reactionary architecture that has outlived its days and is intended to satisfy the animal-like desires of the exploiting class.
The reactionary ideas of the bourgeoisie, their control of architecture, their domination of society by means of gold and their commercialization of architecture are the basis and hotbed of bourgeois architecture. The dissipated lives of monopoly big businesses and reactionary bureaucrats, who are weary of everything normal and disillusioned, and attempt to seek aesthetic pleasure and joy of life from abnormal, eccentric, animal-like and decadent things, have produced functionalism, structuralism, expressionism, naturalism, abstractionism, imitationism, eclecticism, escapism and other innumerable formalistic trends in architecture. Although there are a host of architectural trends of bourgeois formalism, they are all related to each other in their service of the exploiting class and the bourgeoisie, and fundamentally opposed to Juche architecture. Formalistic bourgeois architecture emasculates the national characteristics of architecture and prevents the creation of architecture that is suited to the situation in one’s own country. The proponents of fonnalistic architecture loudly preach the “virtues” of cosmopolitan architecture, arguing that there is no need to set up national barriers to architectural creation now that modern materials and structural techniques are available. This is a lie spread by the colonialists who trumpet their decadent capitalist architecture in order to encourage subservience to great powers, destroy and trample upon the national architectural traditions of other countries and strive to prevent the inheritance of their national architecture and the embodiment of their national characteristics. The architecture of bourgeois formalism makes it impossible to create socialist architecture in keeping with its intrinsic requirements, causes a waste of large amounts of materials and funds through superfluous embellishments and prevents architects from conducting healthy creative activities. The architecture of bourgeois formalism is the inevitable product of the corrupt capitalist system. We must, on no account, tolerate any outmoded and reactionary idea of architecture or its slightest expression, which prevents the embodiment of loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people. We must combat them without compromise and create the most revolutionary architecture of our own style, Juche architecture, that serves the Party, the working class and the people.
Architectural Creation Must Combine the National Characteristics and Modernity Appropriately
A new society, new age and new life require new architecture that accords with them. This is the law of the development of architecture.
New architecture required by the new age is one that embodies national characteristics and modernity in combination.
The establishment of a new society in which the masses have emerged as the masters of society and the makers of history does not mean that the national heritage of architecture, a leftover from the old society, should be totally ignored or that only the national heritage of architecture should be carried forward, shutting our eyes to the requirements of the new age because the nation’s customs, sentiments and tastes that have been historically formed and consolidated in the course of inhabiting the same country are embodied in architecture.
Just as the durability of a nation’s customs, sentiments and tastes is relative, so is the durability of the national characteristics of architecture.
Architecture that caters to the tastes of the people and meets the requirement of the age can only be created when modernity is effected while sustaining national characteristics in architectural creation.
Combining national characteristics and modernity is the basic principle that must be maintained in the creation of Juche architecture that can meet the demands of the new age and new life.
National characteristics provide the conditions for the characteristics of national architecture, and define its quality and form.
Since the essence of architecture is in the unity of its content and fonn, its national characteristics also lie in the unity of its content and fonn. There are no national characteristics of architecture that are separate from its content, and there can be no architectural fonn that is not related to its national characteristics. The national characteristics of architecture find their expression mainly through its fonn, and the national form expresses the national characteristics.
The national characteristics of architecture assume historical concreteness. Although they are relatively durable, they undergo constant changes with the development of the times and are supplemented with new elements. A nation’s ideas, sentiments, way of life, aesthetic feelings, tastes and all the other elements of national characteristics change and develop with the change of the times, and new and better characteristics are fonned.
In order to sustain the national characteristics of architecture, it is necessary to preserve the unique and meaningful features of the nation’s architecture, transfonn them and develop them in keeping with the requirements of the new age.
The national features of architecture assume a class character. Even in the exploitative society, the masses create architecture, so that its national features are shaped, inherited and developed by the Modernity provides the conditions for the modern characteristics of architecture, and defines them.
Architecture that has been created to reflect the people’s requirements in a new age in keeping with the people’s modern aesthetic feelings and modem, civilized life is architecture that embodies modernity, namely, modern architecture.
Modernity is also a quality that exists in the unity of architectural content and form.
The question of embodying modernity in architecture is a question of appraising and defining the architectural characteristics of the times and their value from the point of view of the new age, in which the masses have emerged as independent makers of history.
The modernity of Juche architecture is one that fully reflects and embodies the requirements of the people of the new age.
Architectural modernity is based on national characteristics. There cannot and should not be a modern form of architecture that is devoid of national characteristics. Only modern architecture that sustains national characteristics can be called architecture that truly embodies modernity, namely, modern architecture.
To create Juche architecture, national characteristics and modernity must be properly combined. This is the intrinsic requirement of Juche architecture and the law of its development. Juche architecture in essence caters to both the national tastes and modem aesthetic tastes of the masses. It ceaselessly changes and develops in the course of reflecting the nation’s sentiments, customs, and the requirements of the people’s lives, which grow richer and varied, and the demands of the times.
Carrying forward the national architectural heritage is of great significance in sustaining national characteristics. The creation of socialist-communist architecture does not start from scratch, but correctly carries forward and develops the national heritage of architecture of the previous age. Each nation has created its own architecture in keeping with its customs, ideas, sentiments, aesthetic feelings and tastes while living in the same region, in the same territory and in the same country for a long time, and established fine traditions of national architecture. The heritage of national architecture is a valuable treasure of the nation and a solid foundation on which to create architecture in its own way.
Correct inheritance and development of the nation’s architectural traditions is the way to carry forward and develop the excellent elements of national architecture that are still supported and loved by the people, and to create Juche architecture successfully by sustaining the national characteristics.
It is important in carrying forward and developing the heritage of national architecture to observe the principle of Juche, the principle of class character and the principle of history.
The principle of Juche is the first to be observed. The principle of Juche in carrying forward the architectural heritage of the nation requires that the heritage should be analyzed and evaluated from an independent and creative point of view and carried forward and developed from a critical point of view.
Maintaining the standpoint of Juche in carrying forward the architectural heritage of the nation provides the opportunity to reject sycophancy, national nihilism and the tendency of returning to the past, make a correct analysis and evaluation of the architectural heritage of one’s own country, discover the good and progressive elements in it and develop it in keeping with the aspirations and interests of one’s nation and the people of one’s country, as well as the requirements of the present times.
The historical principle and class principle must be borne in mind. The historical principle requires that the architectural heritage of the nation should be studied and dealt with in relation to the socio-historical circumstances of the period. The class principle requires that the architectural heritage should be analyzed and evaluated by the standard of the interests of the working class, and developed accordingly. The historical and class principles make it possible to distinguish between the outmoded and reactionary elements and the progressive and popular elements in the architectural heritage, and transform and develop it to meet the demands of the new age and the working class.
The architectural heritage of a nation, which has been created by the people, reflects the social system, the people’s political, economic and cultural lives and the customs of the period, and embodies the people’s sentiments, tastes and talents. The heritage of architecture created by our ancestors contains outmoded and reactionary elements as well as progressive and people-orientated elements. We must distinguish them clearly, develop the progressive and popular elements and discard the outmoded and reactionary ones. Even the progressive and popular elements do not fit in with today’s architecture just as they were, because they were evaluated on the level of the period in which they emerged; and because of the socio-historical conditions and the limitations of the creative workers of past ages, they cannot meet the demands of the present times and the working class. When inheriting the progressive and popular elements, it is necessary to carry them forward and develop them critically, in keeping with modern aesthetic feelings and the requirements of the revolution.
Inheriting and developing the architectural heritage of a nation means carrying forward and developing the elements of the architectural heritage that have been preserved to date over a long historical period, not any particular period, the elements that are meaningful and valuable for the creation of socialist architecture. The architectural tradition of a nation is not immutable. While preserving its essential qualities, it changes and develops to meet the demands of the times. Its development presupposes the adoption of new elements and their transformation. The nation’s architectural tradition comprises the valuable elements of the structural composition of architecture and peculiar decorations that have been developed by the masses in the struggle to build independent and creative lives. The national characteristics of architecture exist in the unity of architectural content and form. They have been shaped, carried forward and developed down through history. In all ages the people have adopted various building materials and developed techniques and created architectural structures in new ways to meet the changing social demands, in keeping with their way of life and sentiments and in consideration of the natural and geographical conditions and climatic and topographical features of their country. The national architecture of a country is not inherited without any change, but is ceaselessly transfonned in keeping with the requirements of the developments of the times, and of science and technology, and developed while adopting the good points of foreign architecture.
The architectural tradition of a nation is the crystallization of the valuable experience gained in creating the nation’s architecture by adopting not only the successes made by their ancestors in architectural creation but also the successes made by humanity to suit the national characteristics. However, the architectural tradition and the experience of architectural creation, no matter how good they are, should be inherited and developed critically by discerning the class and historical limitations of the society concerned and by analyzing them correctly from the point of view of the present times, when the masses have emerged as independent makers of history. This is the absolutely correct way of inheriting and developing the architectural heritage of the nation. Some architects have a mistaken view that only houses built by the people for their own lives, not the large buildings like palaces and temples used by the exploiting class in the past, have popular and progressive elements, while other architects have a contrary view. If we recognize only the elements of the architectural heritage that have been created under patriarchal conditions as people-orientated, it will give an impression that the healthy development of architecture has been achieved by something other than the masses’ creative labour; it will obscure the role of the people’s effort in the development of architectural history. Conversely, if we try to seek national elements only in architectural structures like temples, palaces, guest houses and pavilions, which belonged to the exploiting class, saying that the poor people’s houses have no national characteristics worth inheriting because these houses are devoid of architectural value, it will narrow the breadth of architectural heritage of the nation, dwarf it and make it impossible to discover all the people- orientated and progressive elements. The people-orientated and progressive elements of the architectural heritage exist in both the ordinary, simple houses of the masses and edifices like palaces and temples. Large architectural structures like palaces and temples have been constructed with the investment of the people’s creative labour, wisdom and talents, so the requirements of the people’s lives and aesthetic tastes, their aspirations, talents and valuable experience are enshrined in them.
We must identify the national characteristics in the palaces and temples that have been constructed by our ancestors and in the simple houses built by the people for their own use.
Another important task in taking over and developing the architectural heritage of the nation is to discover the architectural fonn that combines the rationality of the dwelling function, the rationality of structure and the fonnative, artistic quality in organic unity. When discovering the national characteristics of architecture we must not pay attention only to the fonnative, artistic aspect, but study and analyze in depth the rationality of the dwelling function and structural rationality comprehensively and in an integral way. In other words, we must be clear about the location of architectural structures, the composition of the space and the solution of the problem of the dwelling function that are suited to the natural, geographical and climatic conditions of our country, the people’s way of life and their sentiments, the structural solution that makes correct use of the characteristics of dynamic engineering, the varied and rich techniques of hannony, the delicate and refined manner of dealing with the architectural details, the structural mood and high level of architectural skills that satisfy the people’s aesthetic demands and cater to their tastes.
In inheriting and developing the architectural heritage of a nation, two deviations must be strictly guarded against, namely, the tendency to return to the past and national nihilism. The tendency to return to the past ignores the class character and social character of architecture and indiscriminately praises things of the past, whereas national nihilism blindly looks down upon one’s own things and admires, praises and worships foreign things unconditionally. If the tendency to return to the past is tolerated in inheriting and developing the architectural heritage of the nation, all the outmoded and backward techniques of architecture will revive, obscure the working-class line in the creation of socialist- communist architecture, and make it impossible to create revolutionary architecture. Conversely, if national nihilism is permitted, a fetish will be made of foreign architecture, which will be mechanically imitated whether or not it is suited to the conditions of one’s country, and in the end sycophancy and dogmatism will appear and obliterate the Juche character of architectural creation. It is true that there are good things, techniques worth adopting, in foreign architecture. But even the good forms and advanced techniques of foreign architecture must be examined to determine whether or not they accord with the situation in one’s own country before they are introduced.
An especially important task in taking over and developing the architectural tradition of our country is to inherit and develop the tradition of Juche architecture created under the wise guidance of the great leader since liberation. He established the Juche- orientated idea of architecture during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, translated it into reality at different stages of the revolution after liberation, ensured that tens of thousands of excellent architectural structures were erected and thus achieved successes unprecedented in architectural history and established the proud tradition of Juche architecture. This is a great achievement that is beyond compare with the successes made by our ancestors. We must successfully inherit and develop the tradition of Juche architecture established by the great leader.
We must sustain the national form of architecture. This is the process of sustaining its national characteristics.
The national form of architecture has been shaped and consolidated through a long historical course. It reflects the nation’s psychological and emotional features, its customs, feelings, techniques and talents in a concentrated manner.
Transfonning and developing the valuable architectural heritage created by one’s nation to meet the requirements of the new age and demands of the people is the way to create national and modem architecture.
Sustaining the national form of architecture is all the more important for a country like ours that starts construction in a new way. We had to start construction from scratch because all the structures that had been erected after liberation at the cost of sweat as well as everything created by our ancestors had been destroyed by the brutal US imperialists during the three-year-long Fatherland Liberation War.
The great leader conceived a magnificent plan of reconstructing all our towns and cities to be as beautiful as the natural scenery of Korea, and ensured that national architecture was actively sustained and that modern Korean-style buildings were reasonably combined with it in urban construction. He saw to it that traditional Korean-style buildings were located in places that played important roles in city fonnation and that the problems of proportion, colouring, measurement and all the other means of harmonious composition were resolved in keeping with the Koreans’ aesthetic feelings and tastes.
Under the wise guidance of the great leader, traditional Korean- style buildings—the People’s House of Culture, Pyongyang Grand Theatre and Okryu Restaurant—were constructed in places that played prominent roles in the architectural fonnation of the capital city of Pyongyang. As a result, national colouring pervades the area along the rivers Taedong and Pothong. Moreover, on Namsan Hill, which is situated in the centre of the architectural fonnation of the city, in the geometrical centre of the triangle, the apexes of which were fonned by connecting those Korean-style buildings, the Grand People’s Study House, an edifice in typical Korean style, was constructed so that all the city acquired a clearly Korean tint. The great leader also made sure that the architectural heritage of the nation, the product of the talents of our ancestors, was treated with care and integrated in city fonnation. This is the reason why our towns and cities including Pyongyang, though young, give an impression of being time-honoured.
The people’s sentiments and customs, which change with the changes of the times, are nevertheless based on those of the past. Therefore, the architecture of the new age can sustain national features only when it inherits the nation’s architectural heritage.
Basing architectural creation on our historical heritage does not mean inheriting it without any modification.
If one ignores modernity in architectural creation on the grounds of sustaining the national characteristics, one will commit the error of falling into the tendency to seek refuge in the past, and in consequence it will have only a bad influence on the people.
A man’s ideology and world outlook distinguish between the progressive and the decadent elements of the nation’s architectural heritage—between the people-orientated and reactionary elements. In order to establish the working-class line with a correct standpoint and attitude toward the nation’s architectural heritage, we must equip ourselves firmly with the revolutionary ideas of the working class.
Modern architecture that reflects the demands of the new age and new life requires effecting a revolution in all areas of architectural creation.
The process of effecting modernity in the field of architectural creation is a process of sweeping away everything that is outmoded and reactionary, and creating and developing new things.
Only when we explore and create new architectural forms required by the new age and the new life, can we develop architecture in keeping with the masses’ sentiments and customs and the new socialist way of life.
Effecting a revolution in architectural design, furniture making and in all other areas of architectural creation is the basic guarantee for exploring and creating new architectural forms.
The level of architectural knowledge must be raised.
A high level of architectural knowledge enables one to distinguish correctly between good and bad elements in the nation’s architectural heritage, between superior and inferior elements, and between progressive and backward elements. National nihilism that looks down upon one’s own things without discrimination, and the opposite tendency to seek refuge in the past by blindly praising one’s own things and adopting them uncritically are both due to a low level of architectural knowledge. Raising one’s level of architectural knowledge is essential for correctly evaluating the architectural heritage created by one’s ancestors and carrying forward and developing them with success.
Reflecting the requirements for the masses’ independent and creative lives through traditional forms is especially important in sustaining the national characteristics.
Sustaining the national characteristics in architectural creation means creating forms that are agreeable to one’s nation and cater to the sentiments and feelings of the nation. People acquire the characteristics of their period and their nation in the course of their lives and in the unit of the nation. These characteristics become solid through their lives and appear as the requirements for their lives.
Our era, the age of Juche, when the working masses demand independent and creative lives, is a new age that is essentially different from the previous ones. The people living in this new age make new demands on architecture. Finding solutions to the problems of architecture to satisfy material and spiritual requirements for the masses’ independent and creative lives is the most essential task posed for architecture in the age of Juche. Because life bears a concrete character, the people’s requirements for life vary with the country and nation. And so, people’s modern aesthetic feelings, customs and sentiments are different, and the social systems, the degrees of the development of the productive forces, science and technology, the natural and geographical conditions and everything else that directly affect architecture are never constant. Architecture that is created in our times must, as a matter of course, meet the nation’s requirements for life and accord with its various conditions. Architecture that is to meet the demands of the masses, who aspire after independent and creative lives, must be created in national forms.
We must discard all the outmoded and backward things, and create new, innovative architecture capable of meeting the demands of our times, the age of Juche.
The process of effecting modernity in architectural creation is a process of closely investigating the people’s customs, sentiments and aesthetic requirements in the midst of the changing and developing situation and creating new idiomatic architecture in keeping with them. In order to satisfy the masses’ requirements for life in the age of Juche, it is necessary to continue to create new techniques of formation. It is true that a nation has its own architectural form of composition that has been shaped in the course of history. Although the form of composition has been polished excellently for a long time, it must not be regarded as absolutely ideal. A form of composition that was polished in a particular period in the past might have been considered to be complete in that period, but in a new age it cannot be considered complete.
The architectural forms of the May Day Stadium and the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre are neither modelled on a Korean-style building nor do they imitate the form of a foreign building. The architectural forms of these buildings are completely new and original ones that reflect the requirements of the new age, the age of Juche, that is fundamentally different from the past, our people’s ideological and aesthetic requirements and beautiful natural and geographical conditions. For this reason, these buildings are loved by the people and called the pride of our age.
It is important to introduce the achievements of modern science and technology into architecture.
Modernity in architectural creation requires a leap forward and a great innovation in all spheres of architectural creation, ranging from city formation to individual structures. This requirements can only be met by the introduction of new developments and advanced experience in architectural science. The success made in architectural science and experience in this field are the basis of effecting a great leap forward in architectural creation.
No matter how new and modern the designs are that an architect produces, they cannot be translated into reality unless the latest achievements of science and technology are introduced into architectural creation. If new building materials and new structural diagrams are available and the techniques of construction are highly developed, the architect can display his creative skills to the full and put the most complicated and varied designs into practice. The development of architectural science and technology provides the material basis for making great innovations in architectural creation.
As a result of a proper combination of national characteristics and modernity in architectural creation in our country today, all the edifices we have constructed have become the pride of our times.
A correct view and attitude towards the architectural structures of the past are very important in achieving modernity. The long history of a nation is the pride of that nation. The architectural structures of a nation are of great significance in providing a visual picture of the long history of the nation. Architectural structures that show the nation’s long history should not be transformed in a modem way simply to achieve modernity in architectural creation.
If architectural structures of the past are transformed in keeping with the requirements of the new age because they lag behind the times, they will lose the flavour of their period, fail to show their historical depth and the long history of the nation and hinder the work of inspiring people with national pride and confidence.
Out of incorrect understanding of the essential requirement of modernity in architecture, some officials in the past suggested transfonning the Pyongyang Grand Theatre in a modern fashion. If we tear down and modify the structures that our people raised at the cost of great labour in the past, it will make it impossible to see the level of the development of architecture of the past and spoil the flavour of the times. The Pyongyang Grand Theatre was constructed in the early 1960s and represents the development of architecture in our country in that period. Transfonning such structures of historical significance contradicts the architectural tradition of the nation and the essential requirement of innovation. Since time-honoured history is the pride of nation, we must preserve old structures with care. The existence of old buildings does not interfere with the effort to achieve modernity. On the contrary, it will throw modernity into relief. With a correct understanding of the architectural principle of combining national characteristics and modernity, its essential content and basic requirement, architects must work hard and creatively to raise our level of architecture to a new stage.
Architectural Quality and Economic Effect Should Be Improved
The quality of an architectural structure means the sum total of the value of its material utility, along with its ideological and artistic value. It finds expression in the unity of its various components, is governed by its mission and purpose, and characterizes its overall value and the level of its interpretation. It is determined and evaluated by the socio-political ideals, class positions and the dominant ideology of the period as well as by the creative qualifications of the architect.
Because architecture is used as a means of meeting the interests and demands of the exploiting class and oppressing and exploiting the masses in exploitative societies, the quality of architectural structures inevitably assumes a reactionary character. In contrast, in our society architectural structures are created centring on the interests of the masses, and in keeping with their aspirations and demands for independent and creative lives, so that their quality assumes a revolutionary character. The quality of Juche architecture is incomparably superior to the quality of architectural structures created in exploitative societies.
Juche architecture requires high quality. Improving the quality of Juche architecture means creating architectural structures that meet the demands of the masses; in other words, structures that are convenient for the masses, comfortable, beautiful and durable.
The quality of architectural designs must be improved. A high quality of these designs is the prerequisite for improving the quality of architectural structures. Architectural designs should be made strictly on the creative principles and formation methods of Juche architecture. These principles and methods make it possible to create fresh, original and people-oriented architectural structures, and to raise their quality.
The quality of building materials must be improved. If their quality is low, it is impossible to create good architectural structures, no matter how high the quality of the designs is. Building materials affect the fate of architecture. Without building materials, there can be no construction. High-quality building materials are the prerequisite for a high quality of architectural structures. High-quality building materials are the means of raising the quality of architectural structures.
The quality of construction must be improved. This is the basic factor that defines the quality of an architectural structure, and the quality of an architectural structure is guaranteed by the quality of construction. Even though the quality of the designs is high and the building materials are good, the quality of structures cannot be raised unless they are constructed skilfully. The constructors must have a correct understanding of the creative intentions of the architect, translate them into reality during the stage of construction, and strictly observe the technical processes and regulations of construction.
An architectural design is an operational map for realizing the Party’s architectural plan, and a complete blueprint is a legal document. None of the content of the design should be omitted under the pretext of speeding up construction, nor should the technical processes and regulations of construction be violated on the excuse of economizing on materials. The technical processes and regulations must be strictly observed, because they have been verified through scientific research and on the basis of experience in construction for many years.
With the attitude of the master who is responsible for not only the designs but also the construction, the architect must closely cooperate with technicians and building workers, and put the Party’s architectural plan into effect in a thoroughgoing way.
The quality of construction equipment must be improved. Using the latest construction equipment is an important requirement for improving modern architectural structures. No matter how high the quality of architectural designs, building materials and construction may be, it will be impossible to improve the quality of structures with the use of backward construction equipment.
Architects must make strenuous efforts to create masterpieces. By architectural masterpieces I mean excellent structures that have been raised to serve as examples of the period and satisfy the people’s lofty demands in everyday life as well as their cultural and emotional requirements. In other words, only architectural structures that satisfy the demands of the material and spiritual lives of the people who live and rest in them and give them feelings of joy and pleasure can be called masterpieces. Architectural structures that cannot satisfy the people who live in them, even though the architects make painstaking efforts and devote all their ardour to their construction, cannot be masterpieces. The people do not like architectural structures that give them inconvenience in their lives and activities no matter how smart and pleasing to the eye their outward appearances may be. If any single element of a building is deficient, such a building cannot be a masterpiece.
The intense creative enthusiasm and talents of the architects themselves are important in creating masterpieces, but it is more important for the leading officials in the field of architecture to correctly evaluate architectural designs, point out their merits and demerits clearly, encourage new ideas reflected in the designs and help the architects to complete their works as masterpieces.
With a keen awareness of their duty and the responsibility they have assumed before the Party and their fellow citizens, and with intense creative enthusiasm, architects must display all their talents and wisdom, translate the Party’s architectural plan into reality on a high level firmly on the basis of the Party’s Juche-orientated creative principles and theory of formation, and thus create more excellent masterpieces.
Increasing the economic effect in architectural creation is essential for improving the quality of architectural structures.
The quality of architectural structures is closely related to their economic effect. The construction of these structures, towns and cities requires enormous amounts of funds, materials and labour. Increasing the economic effect of architectural creation makes it possible to construct more buildings with less expenditure of funds, materials and labour, and improve the quality of structures.
The purpose of increasing economic effect is fundamentally different under different social systems. In capitalist society, where money is everything, the economic effect of architecture is increased for the purpose of making more profits to enrich bankers; whereas in socialist society economic effect is increased for the purpose of making the most economic use of funds, materials and labour, and tapping and mobilizing reserves and potentials in every way to improve the material and cultural lives of the working masses more quickly while ensuring the highest level of the quality of architectural structures.
But the quality of architectural structures must not be lowered on the excuse of increasing economic effect in architectural creation.
For greater economic effect in architectural creation, funds, materials and labour must be allocated rationally and used effectively to prevent their waste. In order to prevent their waste, it is necessary to avoid useless spaces and unnecessary decorations from the stage of designing architectural formation. Useless spaces and unnecessary decorations involve greater per-area cost of architectural structures and lower their quality. Unnecessary spaces in architectural creation must be eliminated and architectural designs should be polished to raise the level of the quality of structures and increase their economic effect.
Architects must use their heads to improve the quality of structures and increase their economic effect from the stage of planning volume and plane. The plan of the volume and plane of structures must be made intensively not only to ensure a high level of rationality of dwelling function and eliminate useless spaces but also to increase the utility of spaces.
Planning more architectural space than necessary or decreasing economic effect by using expensive building materials for less important parts should be avoided. Architects and constructors must discard the outmoded viewpoint that large architectural structures and high-class building materials are needed to ensure the high quality of structures. They must acquire the correct viewpoint that the selection of the sizes of structures in keeping with their function of making life more convenient and the use of inexpensive building materials where they are appropriate are the way to create more durable structures of higher fonnative, artistic quality than those built with high-quality building materials, and improve both their quality and economic effect.
Construction must be industrialized and modernized. Industrialization and modernization of construction is the decisive guarantee for improving the quality of structures and their economic effects as well as a major requirement emanating from the essential advantages of the people-centred socialist system. Industrialization and modernization is the way to build high- quality structures in greater numbers and more quickly, with less outlay of labour and money.
Constructing structures strictly in accordance with their designs ensures their high quality and prevents waste of materials and labour. The use of large amounts of materials and labour does not necessarily ensure the high quality of structures. Efficient construction is fully able to raise the quality level of structures even with less outlay of materials and labour.
In order to increase the economic effect, faulty construction and repetition of construction must be eliminated. This will result in the economic use of materials and labour, greater economic effect and higher quality of structures.
Work should be organized scientifically in keeping with the constructors’ technical and skill levels, and political work among them be given priority so as to raise their political awareness and creative enthusiasm as much as possible.
In order to improve the quality of architectural structures, it is also necessary to prevent the practice of skipping some of the necessary processes of construction or using substitute materials at one’s own discretion on the excuse of economizing on materials and labour.
In order to explore untapped reserves of materials and labour in the stage of construction, new advanced techniques must be introduced and technical innovations made.
The question of improving the quality of architectural structures and the question of increasing their economic effects are not separate questions. They exist in unity. The quality of structures is guaranteed by their economic effects, and the latter is achieved by improving the former. Their economic effects are an indispensable for high quality.
Architects must explore ways to improve the quality of architectural creation and increase its economic effect, and create excellent architectural structures with less outlay of materials and labour to display the advantages of Juche architecture to the full.
Architecture and Formation
Architecture Is a Mixed Art
Architecture is an art.
Architecture reflects human life and expresses ideological and artistic qualities through formative, artistic images and three- dimensional spaces of utility.
Architecture is created by man’s independent, creative and conscious activities. Man creates and develops architecture for himself, for his independent and creative life. Because architecture is the product of man’s independent and creative activities, it reflects man’s ideas, feelings and aesthetic aspirations, and acquires ideological and artistic qualities. Man’s ideas, feelings, aspirations and aesthetic tastes impart ideological and artistic qualities to architecture, characterize them and define them.
The people have noble thoughts, feelings and desires to brighten the times in which they are living and convey their achievements to posterity. Because they have these beautiful and noble thoughts, feelings and aspirations, they create grand monuments, the pride of their times, interpret them formatively and artistically on the highest level and develop villages, towns and cities magnificently and beautifully. Harmony, unity, variety, balance, stability and all the other formative and artistic qualities of architecture are the products of man’s aesthetic ideals. But for man’s thoughts, feelings and aesthetic aspirations, there would not have arisen the question of expressing fonnative feelings in architectural creation, nor the question of ensuring architectural variety, unity, and three- dimensional quality, nor the question of developing villages, towns and cities magnificently in a modem way. Providing physical living conditions and production conditions would have been all that was needed.
An architectural structure that is devoid of ideological and artistic qualities is not man’s spiritual product, but a material product that ignores man’s ideological and aesthetic demands and aspirations. An architectural structure lacking ideological and artistic qualities is unable to perform not only the informative and educational function but also the function of material utility. A man who knows nothing more than physical life cannot be regarded as an independent social being. Likewise, an architectural structure that is devoid of ideological and artistic qualities is not a work of art. Such a structure is as good as a shack in a primitive society. Attaching importance to ideological and artistic qualities as well as material utility in architectural creation is the intrinsic requirement of architecture as an art of utility.
The ideological and artistic qualities of architecture find expression in its fonnative and visual qualities. Architecture reflects people’s ideological and aesthetic feelings, aspirations and objective reality through fonnative, artistic images. This is the essential characteristic of architecture that distinguishes it from other genres of art. The visual quality provides the possibility of seeing an object and directly appreciating its ideological and aesthetic content, and the formative quality makes it possible to appreciate the ideological and aesthetic content by means of association. The visual and fonnative qualities are the basic means of appreciating the ideological and aesthetic content of architecture.
Architecture expresses people’s thoughts, feelings and ideals formatively, artistically and visually by means of sensory vividness, pictorial visibility, emotional excitement and original individuality. A vertical form of an architectural structure gives the feeling of rising, and a rising image of formative art symbolically expresses the unshakable conviction and strong will of the masses, who unyieldingly fight for the revolution. The horizontal fonn of an architectural structure expresses by means of an advancing image of fonnative art the unbreakable spirit of the people, who advance vigorously, courageously overcoming all the difficulties and obstacles in the way of the revolution.
The formative image of Korean-style roofs, the unique architectural form of our nation that is as graceful as flying, symbolically expresses the optimistic sentiments and resourcefulness of our people, who aspire to continuous development to ever-higher planes.
A harmonious combination of the same architectural forms or different architectural forms enriches the images of fonnative art and symbolic expressions. The grouping of vertical forms of architecture emphasizes the expression of rising, and a harmonious combination of vertical and horizontal forms of architecture gives a feeling of greater strength. Symbolic expressions reflect the spirit and requirements of the times, people’s thoughts, feelings and aesthetic aspirations in architecture, and impart ideological and artistic qualities to it. This is the reason why architecture satisfies people’s ideological and aesthetic demands, and contributes to their ideological and cultural education.
Ideological and artistic qualities are essential elements of architecture as an art as well as the basic condition and an important standard for defining its real value.
Placing the grand monument to the achievements made by the leader of the working class in the center of the architectural formation and subordinating all the elements and units of composition to it is the expression of the noble thoughts, feelings and aesthetic aspirations of the people, who desire to hold the leader in high esteem for ever. This image of formative art encourages people to revere the leader ardently and follow him, and inspires them with intense loyalty to him.
The Tower of the Juche Idea and the Arch of Triumph erected in Pyongyang, the revolutionary capital, are proud monumental structures of the age of the Workers’ Party as well as monuments to immortal revolutionary history. The Tower of the Juche Idea sings the praises of the greatness and unconquerable vitality of the Juche idea established by the respected leader. The Arch of Triumph sings the praises of the imperishable revolutionary achievements made by the leader, who accomplished the sacred cause of national liberation by defeating brigandish Japanese imperialism, lighting through a sea of blood and fire, for 20 years. Because of not only their profound and rich ideological content but also their excellent formative, artistic qualities, the Tower of the Juche Idea and the Arch of Triumph lead our people vigorously to the accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche and strongly touch the hearts of revolutionary people throughout the world. Juche architecture is most revolutionary in that it truthfully embodies our people’s thoughts, feelings and aesthetic aspirations.
Architecture is a mixed art.
Architecture embraces sculpture, mural painting, decoration, industrial art and other genres of art. Here, of course, architecture plays the leading role, and the other arts play auxiliary roles enhancing the ideological and artistic qualities and utility of architectural structures in organic combination with them.
Sculpture and mural painting enrich the ideological and artistic content of architecture, and enhance the level of architectural images. Sculpture and mural painting clearly sustain the essential features of architecture as an art, and architecture raises the effect of the formative art of sculpture and mural painting. Architecture and sculpture as well as architecture and mural painting are in a relationship of supplementing each other’s ideological and artistic content and restricting their interpretation.
Architecture, sculpture and painting are sister arts.
Sculpture and mural painting enhance the ideological and artistic level of architecture, emphasize its character and mission, and reflect the spirit of the times in architecture. Because of their vocabulary of shapes, colours, and light and shade, sculpture and mural painting have their own characteristics of presenting reality directly with visual concreteness. They help architecture to embody the social class relationship and the people’s ideological and aesthetic feelings and aspirations of the period in greater width and depth. Sculpture and mural painting play an extremely important role in reflecting the ideological and aesthetic features of the people of the period and the social phase of the period in great width and depth, and in handing down architectural structures to posterity.
Sculpture and mural painting visually describe and reflect reality. They add the atmosphere of the period of architecture.
The group sculpture Flowered Carriage of Happiness set up on the central axis of the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace and the paintings on the faces of the two wings of the palace describe the happiness of the children of our country who learn to their hearts’ content, growing up in happiness, under the free educational system established by the great leader. Thus the sculpture and mural paintings profoundly and vividly show the benevolence of the leader, who takes loving care of the children and treasures them as “kings” of the country. These artistic pieces emphasize the theme of the palace—great embrace— with the strength of formative art. They thus clearly express the working- class and people-orientated character of the building, and its mission as a children’s palace of learning, and enhance its ideological and artistic qualities. The sculptures that describe a variety of sporting scenes, and the dancing group sculpture Evening Glow over Kangson erected in the space that surrounds the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium in Chollima Street, the painting on the front wall of the Mansudae Art Theatre and the dancing group sculpture in the fountain park represent the epitome of the brilliant successes made in the fields of culture and art in our country under the wise leadership of the Party, and clearly show the character and mission of architectural space and structures. The structural composition systems of a building and its formative quality alone are not enough to show its ideological content in depth, and clearly express its character and mission. Sculptures and mural paintings are the most powerful means of expressing and emphasizing the character and mission of architecture, and its ideological and artistic qualities.
Illumination, decoration and colouring, too, are inconceivable apart from architecture. They are in fact important components of architecture. They came into being and have developed because of people’s life demands, their ideological and aesthetic demands, and their desire to create architectural structures that are more convenient, and attractive. Illumination, decoration and colouring are all means of expressing ideological and artistic qualities of architectural structures as well as a prerequisite for improving their quality.
Architecture is a mixed art because it is closely related to sculpture, mural painting, illumination and decoration, and integrates them as its major components.
Architecture is created by the joint efforts of architects, sculptors, fine artists, designers and illuminators. In this sense, architecture is called collective art or group art.
With its quality of formative, artistic expression, architecture can express the spirit of the times, and the ideological and spiritual characteristics and aesthetic feelings of the people in the period without the help of sculptures and mural paintings. This, of course, is symbolic expression rather than concrete, direct and vivid description as achieved by other genres of art. The ideological and artistic content expressed by architecture can only be understood and grasped by the methods of reasoning, appreciation and association. Here the levels of people’s ideological and aesthetic qualifications and their ability to understand architectural language are of decisive significance. The ideological and artistic content expressed by architecture is essentially symbolic; it is expressed by means of such architectural vocabulary as dots, lines, surfaces, three dimensions and space. Depending on their preparedness, people may understand the ideological and artistic content of architectural expression to different extents. However, this simply means differences in degrees of understanding, not any misunderstanding of the essence. Although architecture expresses the spirit of the times, and the ideological and spiritual features of the people in the period and their aesthetic feelings in a symbolic way, these can never be misunderstood, because they reflect the main trend of the period.
Someone once called architecture “solid music”, and someone else referred to it as “soundless music”. This shows that the level of their ideological and aesthetic qualifications and the degree of their understanding of architecture were low. The first view failed to understand the characteristics of architectural time and space, the second view failed to understand in depth and breadth the expressive and symbolic character of architecture.
Architecture involves not only musical interpretation but also pictorial, sculptural and poetic interpretation.
The multi-storeyed, highrise and super-highrise buildings filling the wide space of Pyongyang, buildings that stand around the great leader’s bronze statue on Mansu Hill remind us of an impressive picture of all the Korean people looking up at the leader and cheering, and give us the feeling of their single-hearted unity behind the leader. This is a magnificent and gigantic pictorial and sculptural composition of structures, as well as a poetic and musical image no fine artist, sculptor or musician can ever describe. The fa?ade of the Grand People’s Study House, located on the central axis of the heart of Pyongyang, reminds us of a picture of a happy hen sheltering her chickens under her wings on a green lawn on a sunny spring day. The side view of the fountain park on Mansu Hill gives us an impression of a sculptural composition that represents the revolutionary spirit of our people who, under the revolutionary banner of Juche and under the banner of socialism, rush forward like a hurricane towards communism without wavering no matter what storm blows. The symbolic expression of architecture has the breadth and depth to which those of no single genre of art can be compared. In this sense, too, architecture can be called a mixed art.
The ideological and artistic qualities of architecture find expression in the unity of the prevailing idea of the period and the thought, idea and creative ideal of the architect, and assume a thorough class character as the reflection of the people’s social and class position and circumstances. The class character of architecture is defined by its ideological quality. If its ideological quality is emasculated, its class character becomes obscure, and it loses the function of ideological education. In order to enhance its ideological quality, the hannonious unity of the components of its content must be achieved. The ideological quality of architecture can only be understood by perception and feelings that come in an integral way through sensory organs during people’s lives spent within the architectural space. Only the architectural creations that unify the components of their contents can provide the people with convenient and good living conditions, inspire them with confidence in the durability and lasting quality of the structure, and give them the feeling of beauty and the love of the Party and the leader for the people, love that is embodied in the structure.
Architecture creates various artistic images and conveys them on the strength of its fonnative, artistic expression. The formative, artistic images of architecture are created by means of architectural shapes, various means of formation and the techniques of harmony. The means of architectural formation and the techniques of harmony are the basic vocabulary of fonnative, artistic interpretation.
The artistic quality of an architectural structure is evaluated depending on the skill with which the fonnative, artistic quality is expressed in the architectural form. The fonnative, artistic quality does not find an isolated expression, but an integral expression with the ideological content, the dwelling function and the efficacy of structural techniques.
The tendency of regarding only the formative, artistic quality as important because architecture is an art must be strictly guarded against. Bias towards this quality in architectural creation will result in committing an error of art for art’s sake. Although architecture is an art, it is, in essence, an art of utility. In its creation, therefore, the formative, artistic expression, the dwelling function and the efficacy of the structural techniques must all be dealt with in an integral way. This is the basic guarantee for architecture to perform its informative and educational function, and the function of utility properly, as architecture is a practical art.
The formative, artistic quality of architecture ensures that the components of the content of architecture are properly reflected in the form. The basic elements of the formative, artistic quality of architecture is the quality of beauty. As a reflection of social history, the quality of beauty is shaped in the course of man’s creative labour. It is a social quality that exists objectively, as well as the image of beauty reflected in man’s consciousness.
The fonnative, artistic quality of Juche architecture inspires a strong emotion of beauty in people.
Architects must research new, original and idiomatic architectural forms capable of satisfying the people’s demands and modem aesthetic tastes by basing themselves firmly on the creative theory and formation theory of Juche architecture. They must make innovations on the formative and artistic quality of architecture to satisfy the people’s life requirements and their aesthetic demands, that grow in step with the consolidation of the economic foundation of the country, the development of science and technology and their rising standard of living.
Sustaining symbolic expression is especially important in architectural fonnation. Symbolic expression is the source of architectural vigour. Only vigorous architecture can perforin its social mission and role. An architectural structure that sustains symbolic expression can give a deep impression and arouse strong emotions and vigour, but a structure that lacks symbolic expression looks drab, oppressive and lifeless. Sustaining symbolic expression is a basic link in the whole chain of architectural creation.
In order to sustain symbolic expression in architectural formation, it is necessary to unify the components of the content of architecture in their representation. None of these components should be ignored; nor should they be regarded as absolute.
Architects must attach importance to all the components of the content of architectural structures and sustain a vigorous expression comprehensively, in keeping with the character and features of the structure and in the order of priority. A theatre, for example, should be made to take on a theatrical appearance and express all the components of its content in an integral way, so that its external appearance gives an impression of a theatre at a glance. A gymnasium should likewise express its innate characteristics.
In order to sustain symbolic expression, architects must study new architectural vocabulary and apply it skilfully. Architectural vocabulary plays an extremely important role in sustaining visual expression to impart vigour to architectural shapes.
Architects must delve deeply into reality, correctly grasp the people’s essential and typical requirements for their lives and concentrate their efforts on expressing them.
The technique of symbolic expression in architectural fonnation is the technique of expressing the ideological content of an architectural shape in comparison with the formative features of another thing, as intended by the architect. This technique is based on the formative features shaped by the combination of the elements of formation, on the formative features of things that have been established in people’s memory in the course of everyday life and on the image of the symbolic object.
The symbolic technique in architectural fonnation can enhance the ideological and artistic qualities of a structure only when it is applied skilfully, in keeping with the mission and basic requirements of the structure. The symbolic method must not be used indiscriminately and aimlessly simply because it is an effective way of expressing the ideological and artistic content of an architectural shape. Such a practice will only result in crude and desultory expression, and lower the level of the structure’s ideological and artistic qualities.
The skilful use of various techniques is needed to clearly express the ideological and artistic content of an architectural structure in a symbolic way.
The ideological quality of an architectural structure can find clear expression only in unity with its fonnative, artistic quality. If the ideological quality is to be expressed correctly, it must be supported with the fonnative, artistic quality capable of emphasizing it. The quality of formative art expresses a variety of feelings of fonnative beauty, such as magnificence, sublimity, splendour, strictness, buoyancy, cosiness, brilliance, and motion; and these should be applied to stress the ideological content of structures.
An important aspect of the application of the symbolic technique in architectural formation is to ensure that the architectural shape selected for the symbolic technique fully meets the formative requirements of the structure. The architect must refrain from making a sculptural shape of an architectural structure by ignoring the inherent fonnative requirements of architecture out of his subjective desire to express the ideological content of the structure by means of a new idiomatic architectural shape. A complex and fantastic architectural shape involves the irrationality in the dwelling function, difficulty in structural composition, complication in construction and waste of funds, materials, and labour. Bearing in mind that the practice of clinging to fantastic symbolic shapes out of a subjective desire will invite “expressionist architecture”, a school of bourgeois formalism, architects must adhere to the principles of architectural creation and correctly apply the symbolic technique.
In the application of the symbolic technique, the architectural shape should be arranged neatly, with an appropriate assortment of its components. If the shape of an architectural structure selected for the symbolic technique is arranged crookedly or awkwardly, and not in hannony, the structural shape will be defonned. This will lower the ideological and artistic value of the structure. Efforts are needed to devise new symbolic shapes, but greater efforts should be made to arrange the shapes in hannony.
In the use of the symbolic technique, the object of expression by means of simile should be digested skilfully on architectural principles. For instance, if the original shape of the object is given too concrete an expression on the excuse of describing its shape in detail, the structure will not only fail to sustain its characteristics as an architectural structure but also look shapeless and paltry.
When selecting the shape of a thing for the application of the technique of simile, architects must choose a shape that is pleasing to the eye and gives people a strong impression, by avoiding indiscriminate selection swayed by their own tastes. The selected shape must be simplified neatly into an architectural shape for a rational composition by means of new building materials and structural techniques.
Architects must raise the level of the ideological and artistic qualities of architectural structures by skilfully applying symbolic technique to suit their characteristics.
Making active use of sculptures and mural paintings is especially important in architectural fonnation. Decorative sculptures and mural paintings are important means of representing human beings and their lives vividly and concretely in architecture. Their active use in architectural creation can embody the sentiments of the period realistically and in depth in architectural structures. Decorative sculptures and mural paintings that are suited to the character of architectural structures and the period play a great role in raising the level of the ideological and artistic qualities of architectural structures.
For effective use of sculptures and mural paintings in architectural formation, a proper relationship should be established between architectural structures and sculptures, and between the structures and mural paintings. They are in the relationship of supplementing and restraining each other. So if the problem of their relationship is not expressed properly, no success can be achieved in creative work. The basic task in the solution of this problem is to select the themes and sizes of sculptures and mural paintings properly. The theme of the sculptures to be set up within the space of a city, in the space that surrounds an architectural structure and inside the structural space must be selected in keeping with the character and mission of the space concerned, and their sizes must also suit the structure and the surrounding space. The same applies to mural paintings. The themes of sculptures and mural paintings that are not appropriate to the character and mission of the structures and the architectural space will hinder people’s understanding of them and they will be scorned by the people. Only the decorative sculptures and mural paintings that are appropriate to the character of the structures can sustain both the decorations and the structures while emphasizing the ideological and artistic character of the structures and bring about satisfactory harmony of structures and sculptures and of structures and mural paintings. However good the sculptures and mural paintings themselves are, they will be useless and meaningless as decorative arts if they do not accord with the character of the structures. Also, sculptures and mural paintings that are too large or too small for the architectural space will result in a relationship of overwhelming or being overwhelmed, and destroy the harmony of these elements by dwarfing or exaggerating each other. This will make the decorative devices meaningless, and even counterproductive.
When using sculptures and mural paintings in architectural creation, it is important to sustain their essential characteristics. Both sculptures and mural paintings are genres of fonnative art, and as such they have an independent character and essential characteristics that distinguish them from other arts.
If you ignore the independent character and essential characteristics of sculptures and mural paintings, and render sculptures contrary to their essential characteristics on the excuse of sustaining the fonnative and artistic effect of architectural structures or if you render mural paintings in an obscure manner, you will spoil the ideological and artistic qualities of the architectural structures, not to mention the failure to sustain the characteristics of sculptures and mural paintings.
The argument that sculptures and mural paintings should be subordinated to architectural structures is motivated by a misunderstanding of their essential characteristics and independent character, and their relationship. Sculptures and mural paintings must become integral components of architectural structures rather than being subordinated to them. They must be rendered distinctly, in clear and bright colours through the sustaining of their independent character. Only then can they raise the level of the ideological and artistic qualities of the structures and express their character and mission more clearly.
The need to apply decorative sculptures and mural paintings to architectural structures does not mean tolerating their indiscriminate use for any structures. Their use where they are not appropriate will make an architectural structure look flat and the sculptures and mural paintings look awkward. They should be used sparingly and only where they are indispensable, so that they can be valuable and meaningful.
If an architectural structure is to take on the full appearance of an integrated art work, it must widely adopt sculptures, mural paintings, decorations, illumination and colouring through the strengthening of creative cooperation among the architect, sculptor, fine artist, designer and illumination specialist. The architect must examine and decide whether or not the sculptures and mural paintings accord with his intentions and carry out his creative intentions accurately by reaching agreement with the sculptor and fine artist on every item.
Harmony Is Basic to Architectural Formation
An architectural structure is made of various elements and units of composition. Fascinating architectural structures are, without exception, beautiful and harmonious combinations of a good assortment of a variety of formatively well-polished elements of composition.
Harmony is the key to the comprehensive interpretation of the beauty of life and visual beauty in architectural formation. Harmony plays the role of integrating all the principles and methods of architectural formation.
Harmony is a formative quality that is derived from the unity of a variety of compositional elements. It contributes to the sustaining of the formative features of architectural structures, to the truthful expression of their ideological content and to satisfying the people’s aesthetic and emotional demands.
Harmony is the basis of formative expression in architectural formation. Without harmony, there can be no architectural formation. The process of architectural formation is a process of skilfully arranging all the elements of composition and creating artistic harmony to meet the requirements of formation.
Architecture always presupposes harmony. Without hannony it is impossible to create beautiful architectural structures. In this sense, architecture is called the art of harmony.
Harmony is closely related to unity in architectural formation. Without unity in architectural fonnation there can be no harmony, and vice versa. Ensuring architectural unity is the most important and preferential question in ensuring the hannony of architectural formation.
The unity of architectural fonnation is the quality that subordinates various architectural elements to a unified system and order, integrates them and harmoni z es them. The question of unity arises not only in the formation of the space of a city but also in individual structures, details, decorations, the relationship between structures and natural space, and in all aspects of architectural fonnation. An architectural structure that lacks unity can never be beautiful.
Although unity is important in architectural formation, there should be no bias towards unity. Emphasis exclusively on unity will result in an architectural formation that is drab and unshapely, and gives no gaiety to life.
The unity of architectural fonnation is attained by discovering the qualitative community of every element and part and subordinating them to the integral system and order of formation, and by harmoniously combining them. Since every element and part of architectural composition should be subordinated to the goal of expressing the character and mission of the architectural structure concerned, their qualitative commonality is the prerequisite for unity. If a building that is formed by the sheet- wall-style system is provided with thick round or polygonal pillars of antique style with decorations in relief at their heads, it will contradict the general system and order of formation and fail to ensure unity by ending in destroying harmony in general.
Identifying qualitative commonality and subordinating it to the system and order of fonnation is the prerequisite for ensuring architectural unity, as well as a principle of architectural creation.
In the fonnation of individual groups of architectural structures, streets or cities, unity can be achieved by correctly defining the principal objects and the subordinate ones, and establishing a proper relationship between them.
The principal objects in architectural formation should be important from the political, economic and cultural points of view, have different characters and missions, and be capable of idiomatic formation. Such objects can be the focus of people’s attention, give them a strong impression, present themselves conspicuously and play the leading role in architectural formation.
The relationship between the principal and subordinate structures should be established by placing the principal objects in the centre of the formation, in keeping with the character and mission of the elements and units of architectural composition, and subordinating the other elements and parts of the fonnation to the principal ones. This is the way to ensure that the formation centre of the elements and units of architectural composition correctly expresses its ideological content and gives a strong visual impression.
If you ignore the relationship between the principal and the subordinate or attempt to give prominence to one particular object, the structure you yourself are responsible for, without paying attention to the overall formation, you cannot achieve artistic harmony. If you place a tortoise by a crane to show that the crane has a long neck, you will make a caricature of the latter. An individual object can prove its merit and sustain its individuality only in a situation of overall harmony. Preoccupation with pictorial structure is a case of formalism in architectural creation. This is the very reason why the proper establishment of the relationship between the principal and subordinate structures is important.
The proper establishment of their relationship requires that the composition of architectural elements and units should be neat and consistent. Their neat composition is the basis of their harmony. Success in sustaining the centre of architectural formation and in ensuring its harmony depends on the skill of composition. If the composition is to be satisfactory, all its elements must be closely geared to one another. Knitting all its elements together properly is precisely the skill of composition. Since the formation’s centre plays the decisive role in architectural formation, sustaining the central theme is, in essence, the standard for knitting together the elements of composition.
In the case of a single structure, the elements of its composition should be subordinated to expressing its character and mission; in a unit of composition, all the elements and the overall unit of its composition should be subordinated to its centre; in the architectural fonnation of a city, everything should be subordinated to emphasizing the central theme. The main fonnation centre and the auxiliary fonnation centres should be integrated into the overall formation system and order in an appropriate relationship by various means and techniques in order to achieve hannony. This provides harmony for the architectural formation.
In the composition of the main formation centre as the principal one, the formative quality required for the architectural interpretation of that unit of composition should be expressed and augmented naturally with the formative qualities of auxiliary formation centres. In the course of construction of many gymnasiums in recent years, we have put forward the symbolic expression of sportsmen’s vibrant, strong spirit as the main theme of their exterior composition. At the stage of draft planning of the formation, however, the character and mission of some of the structures were obscured due to too much emphasis on gorgeous and monumental qualities on the ground that the gymnasiums would be monumental structures, and some of them failed to take on the appearance of gymnasiums because of excessive stress on buoyancy on the excuse of sustaining modernity. In the fonnation of gymnasiums, the strong spirit of sportsmen must always be given central expression; the other requirements for formation should be subordinated to the central expression. Giving life to the fonnation centre and subordinating all the other details to it provide the conditions for a well-knit composition.
If the composition is poor, it is impossible to realize the architect’s intentions. Moreover, however novel the structure, it cannot give people a deep impression, and will end in losing artistic value and being discarded as effete.
The formative chann of individual elements of composition must not be given undue emphasis in establishing the relationship between the principal and subordinate structures. Individual elements, no matter how channing and excellent, will be superfluous and valueless, and destroy architectural unity unless they fit in with the overall architectural formation.
The principal and subordinate elements and units of composition should not only be selected properly but also arranged in keeping with their relationship. The individual elements and the principal and subordinate elements of composition units that are arranged in the right places and proper sizes and shapes, in keeping with the overall architectural formation, can ensure a logical system and order of fonnation without damaging their overall harmony.
If individual elements of composition are freely arranged to vie with one another for prominence, they will destroy the harmony of the overall fonnation and make the fonnation desultory and crude. The logical anangement of the elements of composition to sustain the relationship between the principal and subordinate elements can express their inherent formative characteristics, ensure the harmony of the overall formation and give people a strong impression of beauty.
This arrangement is a basic condition for ensuring unity and harmony in architectural fonnation. The arrangement of the elements and units of composition must follow the logic of life and the logic of fonnation, instead of taking only visual aspects into consideration. Only then can the overall formation be genuine and lifelike.
Even in the simple anangement of the elements of the same character in which the relationship of principal and subordinate character is not clear, efforts should be made to combine the principal and subordinate elements properly, in order to refine the overall composition. Even in a simple combination of the elements of the same character, harmony does not come about automatically. The simpler architectural shapes are, the more refined and profound creative thinking is required of the architect. Especially in the arrangement of different elements of composition, the relationship of their principal and subordinate character must be established clearly. Only then is it possible to express the character and mission of architectural structures clearly and produce strongly impressive fonnations.
A correct solution to the problem of this relationship is especially important in the architectural fonnation of groups of structures, streets and cities.
Architectural groups, streets and cities are formed through the harmonious combination respectively of individual structures, groups of structures and streets. The elements and units of their composition should be formed in an original and idiomatic way. However, if all of them are formed ostentatiously, the architectural formation will be desultory and crude, and unity cannot be ensured. The relationship of principal and subordinate character is a problem that arises in all stages of architectural formation; it provides the basic guarantee for effecting unity and harmony. The relationship of principal and subordinate character is relative in the fonnation of architectural groups and streets. A structure that plays the leading role in a group of structures may play only an auxiliary and subordinate role in the formation of the street, and a structure that plays the leading role in the fonnation of a street may perform a subordinate one in the fonnation of the city.
In the fonnation of the centre of a city, however, this relationship is absolute. Even though history advances, and however large the city grows, the center of the city and its central theme must not change. This is a question relating to the character of the society concerned, and the principle should be carried forward down through generations as long as the social system remains fundamentally unchanged.
The hearts of cities in our country embody the immortal Juche idea, the guiding ideology of the age of independence, and reflect the advantages of the socialist system, that is centred on the people. At the centres of the hearts of these urban communities are erected grand monuments and monumental structures that should be handed down through generations, singing the praises of the respected leader’s greatness and his imperishable achievements. All our cities have been fonned with grand monuments and monumental structures as their central themes, so that they have realized ideological and fonnative artistic unity, and beautiful harmony.
The hearts of cities epitomize the guiding ideology, guiding ideas and class character of the society concerned. The central theme of the hearts of cities cannot and must not change so long as the class character of the society remains unchanged.
In urban architectural formation, all the elements and units of composition should be subordinated to the central theme. This is the prerequisite for ensuring the unity and hannony of the overall architectural formation of cities and for clearly expressing their central themes. The unity of architectural formation is also effected by means of balance and unified use of formation techniques.
In architectural formation, balance is a particular fonnative feeling of architectural structures and spaces, and serves as a major means of achieving hannony. Architectural hannony and unity presuppose balance. An architectural structure or space that is not balanced can achieve neither hannony nor beauty.
The Ice Rink on the Pothong River in Pyongyang not only has a novel form but is also well balanced. However, the original formation was not good. At first, a waiting room was built on one side of the Ice Rink, so that it looked like a one-armed man, neither balanced nor harmonious. In order to make the building harmonious and provide skaters with better training conditions, we built a one-storey training hall on the opposite side of the waiting room. This shows that balance is a prerequisite for unity and harmony.
The joints between the elements and units of composition must be made harmonious. The joints between these elements hold a very small proportion of the quantity of all the architectural formation, but they are more powerful means of effecting overall unity than any element and unit of composition. The joint of composition elements perfonns the function of connecting various elements and plays the role of effecting harmony in their connection.
If different composition elements are connected without a joint, they look unnatural and deformed. A joint should accord with the formation system of the composition unit and ensure unity with it. Joints play the role of achieving overall harmony by mitigating the difference in the fonnation of the qualitatively contrasting elements of composition.
There is no set fonnula for the use of means of achieving the unity of different composition elements. Architects must effect unity in different ways to suit the specific situation of the objects on the basis of trained and refined creative techniques and rich experience.
Architectural mood needs unity.
Architectural mood is a particular fonnative feeling and architectural colouring that emanates from the expression of the essential feature of the architectural form or architectural fonnation of an object so that its essential feature pervades the whole object. Architectural mood bears the character of the times, geographical characteristics, and national and class character.
The particular impression of architectural interpretation emanates from the style of the structure, but it is emphasized by architectural mood.
Architectural mood has the strongest effect on stressing the artistic colouring of an architectural structure. An object or a three- dimensional architectural space that lacks the unity of architectural mood shows different architectural colours. This produces miscellaneous forms in architectural creation. Lack of unity in architectural mood may result in the creation of an architectural fonn that is as ludicrous as a man wearing a Korean horse-hair hat in a Western suit. It will obliterate the national and class character of architecture, make a hodge-podge of architectural structures and render them unidentifiable when they are created. A jumble of architectural forms is taboo.
The unity of architectural mood is an important requirement for ensuring the harmony and ideological and artistic qualities of an architectural structure.
The mood of architectural structures satisfies life and gives people a strong impression by means of peculiar emotional colouring and tastes. When people say that a structure has a peculiar taste or characteristic, they refer to its mood. The clearer the mood of a structure is, the more vividly it expresses people’s life requirements and the essence of their aspirations. An architectural structure that lacks idiomatic colouring and taste cannot receive a favourable evaluation. The quality of an architectural creation is affected by how its mood is sustained. Because of the characteristics of their mood, architectural structures express fonnative feelings and impressions, such as the state of being static or dynamic, buoyant or weighty, magnificent, cheerful or graceful, life feelings such as convenience, safety, pleasantness and snugness as well as sensory feelings such as being soft, cold, warm or cool. Various psychological and emotional feelings expressed by architectural structures are stimulated by using the fonnative characteristics of the fonnative elements—dots, lines, surfaces and masses—and various fonnative means and techniques in keeping with the mission and purpose of the objects. The mood of architectural structures enriches their formative, artistic qualities and imbues them with variety.
Architectural mood must accord with the people’s life requirements and their aspirations. It cannot be grasped by architects’ own tastes or devised by their heads. Their creative individuality should be expressed on the basis of life requirements and in sustaining the architectural characteristics of life delicately and clearly.
In order to grasp an idiomatic mood, the architect must delve into life and grasp people’s requirements for independent and creative life, and their aspirations, and pay necessary attention to identifying the progressive, revolutionary and typical elements. He must accurately grasp the emotional colours and tastes that emanate from these requirements and aspirations, and use them to harmonize all the architectural images. Only then can he ensure the unity of mood. Mood that is based on life can only be durable when it is sustained by the architect clearly and vividly.
The mood of an architectural structure must agree with its function of utility and meet its educational purpose. Its mood is sustained not for the sake of stylishness but for the truthful representation of the ideological content of the structure, and for the enhancement of its function of utility and educational significance. If the problems of its ideological and artistic qualities and the rationality of its utility are not correctly solved due to preoccupation with stylish architectural creation, its mood cannot be sustained, either. Architects must discover the formation system that can correctly reflect the essence of social life that has been grasped through the study of the people’s requirements for independent and creative life and their aspirations. Only then can they effect the unity of mood to produce emotional colours and original tastes in keeping with the essence of social life.
The mood of an architectural structure must correctly express its mission and meet the demands of the development of times, and cater to the people’s tastes. Every architectural structure has a mission appropriate to its type. So the mission must be expressed correctly in the structure. Its mood cannot occupy an independent place, separate from its mission. In architectural creation, the problem of mood must always be solved to produce idiomatic emotional colours and tastes in keeping with the formation requirements of the types of structures.
Even structures with similar functions should be made to express different, original colours in accordance with their positions and the roles they play in society.
Architects must not only pay close attention to sustaining mood, but also investigate new characteristic moods to meet the demands of the developments of the times, discover and perfect modern moods that are redolent of national tastes and agreeable to their people’s emotions and tastes.
Optical illusions must be dealt with skilfully. They are caused mainly by the characteristics of the visual sense and the deflection of light. Correctly grasping the characteristics of optical illusions and discovering and applying the technique of design to cope with them is essential for creating excellent architectural shapes. A number of techniques of achieving hannony, including contrast and measurement, have been evolved on the basis of the characteristics of optical illusions. The technique of harmony has been studied on the basis of optical illusions. The method of coping with optical illusions affects the use of the technique of design. Therefore, the phenomena of optical illusions are major preconditions that govern the technique of design.
Architects must make a deep study of the optical illusions that occur in the composition of architectural shapes, and deal with them skilfully in keeping with the character of objects.
Architectural structures have time and spatial characteristics. In order to ensure harmony in architectural formation, therefore, architects must pay serious attention to enhancing the fonnative effects of structures in relation to time.
The formative effects that change in visual sight with the movement of the person who sees the object are merged into an image in the person’s mind with the lapse of time, and the structure is evaluated as a whole on the basis of the image. Approaching the structure from a distance, the person perceives the formative effect of the silhouette of the structure, and then that of its details, and finally the effect of the texture of the finishing materials with vividness; the structure gradually looks larger and larger. It is necessary, therefore, to make a correct estimate of the fonnative effects at a close distance, medium distance and long distance, locate the main visual point at a place where many people can see the structure, and investigate new design techniques to enhance the formative effect at different distances. A design technique that can emphasize major objects on the strength of the duration of time and alter the formative feeling in the course of movement must be evolved.
The time factor related to the movement of the visual point on the ground provides the possibility of evolving new techniques of design and creating fresh and idiomatic architectural structures. A high visual point presents the formative effect of a city as a whole, namely, the harmonious arrangement of individual structures that look like dots, lines and masses as components of the city, natural undulations, lawns, mutual relations of a variety of structures, formative rendering of the road network and the make-up of the heart of the city. In the selection of the plane outlines of structures, therefore, attention must be paid to enhancing the formative effect of the plane outlines and that of the plane composition system of the whole city, instead of emphasizing only the aspects of their dwelling function.
The present situation in which science and technology are making rapid advances and diverse means of transportation are being developed urgently requires that formative effects should be enhanced to satisfy modern aesthetic tastes with a good knowledge of the characteristics of man’s movement and the characteristics of the space and formative change caused by that movement. Architects must inquire into new design techniques to enhance the formative effect of architectural formation in relation to time.
The rapid development of the means of transportation in our era has increased the role of the time factor in architectural fonnation and requires the widening of the range of the visual point. In order to enhance the formative effect of structures in architectural formation, the movement of visual points must be taken into careful consideration. This is why the architect is required to make his perspective drawing in accurate consideration of real conditions in the stage of the draft planning of architectural fonnation. The perspective drawing is made for the purpose of examining the perspective effects seen at major visual points. Architects must not try to make only a gaudy perspective drawing, but acquire the habit of drawing it at real visual points and from the real visual distances, and thereby make the most realistic designs.
Originality Is the Essential Requirement of Architecture
Because of the high ideological and artistic qualities of its content and fonn, architecture as an art rouses people’s aesthetic and emotional interest, and thus performs its informative and educational function. The artistic quality of architecture depends mainly on architectural interpretation and formative expression.
The basic requirement for architectural interpretation is to give a skilful architectural and formative expression to people’s demands for material life as well as their ideological and aesthetic demands. Only when the problem of this basic requirement for architectural interpretation is resolved in a new and idiomatic way can it be said that a fresh architectural image has been created.
Architecture is creative work. Creative work is the process of creating a new thing. An architectural structure that is devoid of new things and characteristics is not a creation.
Originality is the essential quality of creation.
Architectural creation can be said to be the process of selecting and shaping all the elements of composition so that the created architectural space expresses new colours and gives people characteristic tastes.
An architectural structure can perform its mission as a creation satisfactorily only when it has been created to give people a new and unique impression as a result of active inquiry into new means and techniques of formation and their application, and by grasping and resolving a wide range of problems relating to various subjective and objective factors. This means thoroughly overcoming stereotypes and similarities in architectural creation, and creating new and idiomatic architectural structures.
Imitation in architectural creation produces stereotypes and similarities. Stereotypes and similarities mean the death of creativity. If one gets into the habit of using stereotypes and similarities in architectural creation, one cannot acquire a deep understanding of the people’s requirements for life and cannot escape from the framework of conventional architecture. Imitationism imprisons creative principles within the straitjacket of architectural creation, and makes it impossible to inquire into new methods and techniques and apply them boldly. Imitationism is caused by one’s failure to understand the essential characteristics and mission of architectural creation or, even when these are understood, by one’s inability to see others’ architectural creations with an analytical eye and establish one’s own creative view. Architectural imitationism is a harmful ideological trend in that it presents illusions about others’ structures, and makes it impossible to acquire one’s own creative view and inquire into new things. If you are steeped in imitationism, you will copy the creative intentions embodied in the structures created by other people, and adopt the characteristics of their formation without any consideration.
Adhering to the principle of originality, avoiding repetition and creating new and idiomatic structures is especially important in architectural creation.
Since human beings and their lives are immensely varied and have their own characteristics, architectural structures that reflect them must be varied, new and characteristic. This requires that architects should sustain their creative individuality and display originality. Human architecture has developed as architects have discovered the essential qualities of actual things and phenomena, and created new things in keeping with the essential qualities. As the history of architecture shows, architects can make an active contribution to the development of architecture only when they create new and characteristic structures by displaying originality in architectural creation.
For the creation of new and characteristic architectural structures, it is essential above all to set the main line correctly and come up with bright ideas. This is the first process of architectural creation and the basic condition that affects success in creative work. The question of setting the main line of architectural creation is the question of selecting the theme of interpretation. This theme provides the condition for the architect to develop the whole process of architectural creation in keeping with his intentions. It integrates the whole process of architectural creation, ranging from the definition of the composition and the shapes of architectural forms and the characterization of mood to the adoption of new techniques of creation, and ensures consistency in architectural formation.
Since originality is the essential quality of architecture, the theme of interpretation must also be original. The theme is set and defined by the people’s aspirations and demands, the character and mission of architectural structures, the requirements for the overall formation of the city, and the natural and geographical conditions. All these factors that affect the theme of architectural interpretations differ from one another and have their own peculiarities. An architectural structure that has not been created in a new and characteristic way cannot perform its mission properly, hampers general architectural fonnation, and moreover fails to meet the purpose of its creation. In this sense, the theme of interpretation is not abstract, but concrete, creative and original.
Delving into objective reality and grasping it is the basic guarantee for the choice of the right theme of interpretation in architectural creation. By objective reality I mean the people’s lives and the natural and geographical conditions. Objective reality is immensely varied and rich, and nothing in it is the same as any other thing. The architect must acquire a deep understanding of such reality so that he can establish his creative intentions in an original way.
Creative intentions are the basis of defining the direction of architectural creation and the form of an architectural structure.
Occurrences of similar draft plans presented for the same project are the result of the architects’ failure to establish individualistic creative intentions and set their themes of interpretation in an original way.
The important requirement for the choice of an original theme of interpretation is to define the ideological content of each structure properly, acquire a correct understanding of the basic purpose of creating the architectural structure, and on this basis grasp its role. Without doing this, it is impossible to define the correct line of creation and find a profound solution to the problem of the theme.
In order to sustain the originality of the theme of interpretation, the elements and units of composition, the means and techniques of formation and everything else must be subordinated to meeting the requirement for sustaining its originality. There is a variety of means and techniques of formation that can express the content of the theme, and the objective reality that conditions it is complex. The architect must choose the means and techniques which are appropriate for the theme from among the varied and complex factors of reality and creative spaces and subordinate them to realizing his creative intentions. This is one of the basic guarantees of success in architectural creation.
Finding an idiomatic solution to the problem of architectural composition for expressing creative intentions is another important task involved in sustaining the originality of the theme of interpretation.
The original colour of architectural interpretation can only be expressed clearly by setting the main line of composition clearly, and following this line. The main line of composition must be set by taking into full consideration the effect of interpretation, and all the elements of composition must be integrated with it. Such a composition is a proper one.
The Pyongyang Maternity Hospital has been constructed for the women of our country. When designing the hospital, the architect grasped the Party’s idea and the reality of women’s lives in depth, and on this basis set motherly love as the theme of interpretation. His creative aim was to describe the benevolent features of mothers who bring up their children in their embrace. The architect defined the shape of the building in accordance with the theme of interpretation, created and applied a new technique of fonnation appropriate for his creative aim, concentrated all the elements of architectural composition on realizing his theme and creative aim, and subordinated them to this purpose. In this way, the architect was able to implement the Party’s idea of constructing the maternity hospital in an idiomatic way and make it a new masterpiece of originality. The Pyongyang Maternity Hospital reminds us of the benevolent features of a mother who embraces in her arms her child who comes running, calling her, or of the happiness of a mother who holds in her arms her twin babies that have just begun to find their feet. A mere glimpse of it is enough to see that it is for women.
An architectural composition that does not give you an idea of the architect’s creative intentions and produces equivocal spaces is not a well-knit composition.
By the principle of originality or avoiding repetition in architectural formation I mean, in essence, that one structure should not be similar to another or be a repetition of another. I do not imply that even the elements of the composition of a single structure should be dissimilar from one another. When there is a need to make a simple rhythmic change in keeping with the character and characteristics of the structure, the composition elements of the same type, the same size and the same shape can be arranged in the same manner. This is also important in the formation of groups of architectural structures, streets, villages, towns and cities. Because each structure becomes an element or unit of composition in the fonnation of a group of structures, a street or a city, the repeated arrangement of structures of the same type, the same size and the same shape within a certain scope can make rhythmic changes and form a new and characteristic group of structures, a street or a city.
Urban planning is a field of architectural creation, not merely the work of locating buildings, and defining their heights.
Urban planning combines architectural structures in an integral flow according to the theory of architectural formation, to create an artistic image. The city architect arranges architectural structures by consistently focussing them on the city centre, and thus completes the architectural formation of the city. In urban planning, the sustaining of the characteristics of individual structures must not damage the hannony of the overall urban planning nor should the characteristics of the formation of individual structures be ignored for the sake of the hannony of the planning.
The architect must display his originality in sustaining the characteristics of individual structures and perfecting the harmony of the overall urban planning. Only such an architect can be called talented and capable of creating genuine architecture.
When planning the layout of a city, the architect must address and solve not only the problem of expressing the working-class and popular character of the socialist system and the essential advantages of this system, and of building the city to meet the people’s demands and aspirations, but also the problem of forming the city excellently from the point of view of formative art.
For the creation of new, idiomatic architectural structures, architects must steadily improve their creative skills and sustain their creative individuality. A high level of creative skill is an essential condition for sustaining creative individuality, and characteristic creative individuality is the basis of original creation.
Since architects are directly responsible for architectural creation, success in this work depends on the architects.
The process of inquiring into new things, discovering them, interpreting them and realizing them, namely, the process of architectural creation, the process of creating new things, requires architects to have a high level of creative skills more than anything else. Only those architects who have high creative skills can inquire into and discover new things, interpret them excellently and create idiomatic architectural structures liked by the people. Architects with a low level of skills will blindly imitate another’s creation and end up committing the error of dogmatism and imitationism.
Sustaining creative individuality is no less important to architects than raising the level of their creative skills. The creative individuality of architecture is the integral reflection of the architect’s ideological standpoint and attitude, his view on architecture, his cultural level, and his feelings and emotions in his architectural structure. In order to create a distinctly individualistic and original structure, the architect must acquire a revolutionary world outlook as well as a high level of creative skills.
An architectural structure reflects the architect’s creative individuality. The production of various works with different interpretations for the same project is due mainly to the differences in the architects’ creative individualities. The principles of formation and its requirements for a particular project may, of course, be the same; but the means and techniques of its fonnation are not the same. The means and techniques of realizing and expressing the principles and requirements of formation depend largely on the architects’ creative individualities. When individuality is sustained, ten architects who participate in the same architectural project can produce ten different works, and one hundred architects one hundred different works. This is the sole way to create new and idiomatic architectural structures. The architect’s creative individuality runs consistently throughout the whole process of grasping the essential requirement of the written technical direction, selecting the new and essential elements of the people’s requirements for life and their aspirations, and including them in the content of the architectural structure, as well as creating a new architectural shape on the basis of existing shapes by spreading the wings of creative imagination to suit the new content of the structure.
Creative individuality is a major indication of an architect’s character. An architect’s creative individuality must be consonant with the people’s demands for independent and creative life and their noble and beautiful aesthetic aspirations, and must be expressed in architectural structures in such a way as to be accepted and loved by the people. The creative individuality of an architect is not the same as his personal tastes or his own stereotypes. Architects must not insist on their personal tastes or their own stereotypes on the excuse of sustaining their creative individuality. Stereotypes in architectural creation are a form of deviation resulting from a misunderstanding of the creative character of architecture. This deviation is related to a wrong attitude towards architectural creation. It deforms architectural structures.
The sustaining of architects’ creative individuality in architectural creation is done not for its own sake but for the creation of a greater variety of new architectural structures that satisfy the requirements of the times and the people’s ideological and aesthetic demands. Their individuality must always accord with the requirements of Party policy and the people’s noble and beautiful aesthetic aspirations. Possession of a variety of creative techniques applicable to architectural objects in keeping with their mission and characteristics, together with the ability to create original and idiomatic structures, is the prerequisite for becoming a capable architect. Only architects who have a good command of a variety of creative techniques can create new and idiomatic architectural structures in keeping with the characteristics and missions of different projects.
An architect’s creative individuality finds concrete expression in his architectural structures. So his individuality must pervade these structures. The skill expressed through one or two elements of a structure is not creative individuality; it is the product of a creative attempt at popularity. It damages the hannony of the overall architectural structure and contradicts the principle of architectural creation. Only when the architect’s originality pervades the whole structure to make it a completely new and idiomatic structure, can his individuality be genuine and significant.
An architect’s creative individuality is the prerequisite for the creation of new and idiomatic architectural structures.
It is important for the architects in charge of urban planning to sustain their creative individuality, but it is more important for them to abide by the principle of collective creation. An urban construction plan cannot be made by one architect or two, it can be made only by the efforts of a design enterprise or by a large group of designers. Even if an individual architect in charge of urban planning is possessed of the talent and skill needed for organically combining a variety of architectural forms, that alone is not enough for making a plan ensuring hannonious urban planning. Implementing the principle of collectivity in the planning of urban construction is the basic factor that ensures success.
Effective use of architectural vocabulary in keeping with the characteristics of a particular project is of great significance in creating new and idiomatic architectural structures. Architectural vocabulary is the means of expressing architects’ creative intentions.
At the sight of structures and streets, people’s aesthetic feelings include magnificence, buoyancy and gorgeousness, and they appreciate the architects’ creative aims as they would do stories and songs, because they are helped to do so by the architectural vocabulary.
Just as a man expresses his ideas and will, and conveys them to other people through the vehicle of language, so architectural structures express their ideological content and the architects’ creative intentions and convey them to people by means of architectural vocabulary, consisting of the composition elements and means for expressing architectural content in concrete forms. The means of effecting hannony play a role similar to that of language that expresses and conveys people’s ideas and will, so it is called fonnative language.
The means of harmony in architecture bear the qualities of a formative law that exists objectively.
The means of harmony are applied by architects to the composition of architectural shapes, and reflect the appearances of the times and society. In other words, in order to create architectural shapes in keeping with the requirements of the times and society, and people’s material and spiritual demands, architects select composition elements and means of harmony capable of expressing them truthfully, and apply them to architectural creation. The means of hannony that have been selected and applied to architectural fonns by the architects are exactly the technique of harmony.
Symmetry, asymmetry, proportion, rhythm, contrast, moderate difference and measurement are the basic means of hannony that are frequently applied to the composition of architectural shapes; texture, colour, decoration, light and shade, and illumination are the auxiliary means of hannony.
Symmetry and asymmetry occupy a very important place in the formation of architectural shapes. Everything around us is, without exception, symmetrical or asymmetrical; especially, the general and partial shapes of animals and plants are, without exception, symmetrical. Symmetry is the quality of formative law that stimulates feelings of neatness and clarity. It is a formative quality applicable to the requirements of function, composition and dynamics.
The technique of symmetry presupposes balance.
Asymmetry is a quality of formative law that produces feelings of softness, grace and motion. It affords freedom, in contrast to symmetry, as well as a certain degree of change. The technique of asymmetry is applied to organizing the dwelling function of architectural structures and in accordance with the requirements of overall architectural plans. Ensuring a proper balance is important in the application of the technique of asymmetry. If an asymmetrical composition of the shape of an architectural structure results in imbalance between the sizes of the elements and the weights of the masses placed on both sides of the visual axis and ends in their leaning to one side, it has no significance as a technique of harmony in architectural fonnation. An imbalanced structure loses stability, and gives people a feeling of instability. Balance in architectural formation is an important fonnative quality that underlies all formative qualities.
The techniques of symmetry and asymmetry should be applied by taking the mission and character of structures into consideration. The practice of insisting on symmetry and inviting irrationality in the organization of interior spaces must be avoided even when asymmetrical composition is favourable; conversely, it is intolerable to use the technique of asymmetry which wastes materials and building spaces on the excuse that the asymmetrical technique is in fashion even when symmetrical composition is applicable.
In architectural formation, proportion is an important means of harmony that affects the beauty of shapes. It is the application of the law of geometric proportion to the composition of architectural shapes. It represents the relationships between the length, width and height of architectural shapes, and between the sizes of the whole shapes and their parts and between the sizes of different parts.
Proportion in architectural formation is not immutable; it changes and develops with the changes in the requirements of the times. Architects must investigate beautiful compositions of proportion in keeping with the developing aesthetic tastes of the times.
Architectural rhythm stimulates a feeling of motion by creating a sense of pulsation through the repetition or alternation of architectural elements and intervals between them. Today, when prefabrication is widely adopted in construction as a result of the progress of industrial techniques, skilful rhythmic composition is very important.
Contrast and moderate difference are also important means of harmony for creating architectural shapes.
Contrast produces a formative effect by comparing elements with opposite qualities, and emphasizing their characteristics. If you compare two elements, large and small, the large one looks larger than its real size and the small one looks smaller. Contrasting composition is usually used when emphasizing important elements of architectural shapes. Contrast is possible only when the compared elements ensure hannony. If the difference between the two compared elements is too great and keeps them out of harmony, contrast lowers their formative effect.
Moderate difference stimulates different fonnative feelings of two architectural elements through slight differences in their shapes. Contrast and moderate differences should be skilfully applied in creating architectural shapes to enhance their fonnative effect.
Measurement, a means of hannony, is used mainly to express the characteristics of the fonnation system between the whole and the part of an architectural shape. Measurement in general means the proportion of given sizes, but architectural measurement defines the formative expression of the proportion between the relative sizes of the whole and the parts of an architectural shape, between those of different architectural shapes and between those of architectural shapes and the things that surround them, as felt when they are seen by people, regardless of their real sizes. Architectural measurement is applied for the purpose of formatively expressing the qualitative aspect of architectural shapes. Thick measurement is used to express the feelings of heavy weight, magnificence and sublimity, and small measurement is used to express the feelings of light weight and prettiness.
In architectural formation, measurement should be done meticulously, in keeping with the mission of the object and the requirement for its dwelling function and structural requirement, and even in consideration of the effect of the texture and colouring of the finishing touches of the structure.
The standard of measurement plays an extremely important role in the composition of measurement. It is the size that has been established in people’s minds through the actual experience of their lives. As such, it enables people to measure relative sizes of architectural structures. An architect draws pictures of a man and a motor vehicle by the elevation or the perspective he is drawing, in order to show visually the relative size of the object.
The auxiliary means of harmony—texture, colours, decorations, light and shade, and illumination—also play very important roles in the composition of architectural shapes. Their function is similar to that of dressing and adorning a person.
Finishing touches also affect the feeling of the beauty and quality of an architectural shape. Through the finishing touches of an architectural structure, people get an impression of the characteristics of the period, national sentiments, and the aesthetic and emotional qualifications of the architect. The texture, colours, decorations, light and shape, and illumination of a structure must also be applied in keeping with the mission and character of the structure, and the system and order of overall formation.
Imagination associated with colours, what colours symbolize, and the attachment to colours vary with people’s world outlook, aesthetic ideals, class position, the circumstances of their lives, national customs, emotions, preparedness, sex and age. What a man associates with particular colours, what they symbolize to him and which colours he likes express his class character, national characteristics, and the degree of his aesthetic qualifications and tastes. Only when colours are selected and arranged, and their harmony is realized by taking into consideration the physical and chemical qualities of colours, together with people’s physiological and psychological conditions, in a comprehensive manner can their formative effect be expressed realistically.
Colours should be arranged skilfully to express their fonnative effect properly in the scheme of colouring architectural shapes. Different arrangements of colours result in differences in the overall fonnative effect, even based on the same shape and texture. The arrangement of colours must be based on their harmony. Variety in the arrangement of colours cannot stimulate people’s aesthetic interest unless the colours are harmonized. In order to successfully select and arrange colours, it is essential to apply the main means and techniques of harmony properly to ensure overall harmony and effect a characteristic and varied arrangement.
Architects must launch into ventures with a high level of creative enthusiasm.
They must do so by rejecting repetition and imitation and renovate techniques in order to create new things.
Creative skill and individuality are, in essence, the potential forces of architects, and these potential forces can find expression as great strength only through engaging in practical ventures to renovate creative techniques and create new things. In this sense, it can be said that ventures incorporate the unremitting efforts and practical struggles of architects to create original and idiomatic architectural structures.
Ventures require a high level of creative skill and make it possible to sustain creative individuality. An architect with a high level of scientific and technological qualifications and creative skill is bound to launch ventures, and in the course of this discover significant creative techniques and techniques of expression, and apply them to architectural creation. Thus he creates new and characteristic structures.
Ventures are the expression of the revolutionary creative spirit of an architect in the course of architectural creation. They enable the architect to display all his creative enthusiasm. Only when his heart burns with creative enthusiasm can the architect strive to create even a small structure in a new and idiomatic way, taking it seriously, by venturing to renovate techniques. Such an architect never fails to create architectural structures in keeping with the Party’s intentions and the people’s requirements.
Stagnation in creative work and the failure to create new and characteristic architectural structures are due to the architect’s lack of creative enthusiasm and his refraining from ventures. Such an architect always clings to the same techniques or imitates another’s. No matter how skilfully he puts the finishing touches or how dexterously he deals with the details, he cannot create new things or overcome imitation and stereotyping if he imitates others or clings to the same techniques.
An architect is a creator of new things. An architect who imitates others and creates similar structures by clinging to one or two techniques is not a creative architect, although he is an architect in name.
Creative enthusiasm and creative venture constitute creative spirit and creative attitude of an architect, the source of strength that encourages him to creative endeavour and an important factor that rejects stereotyping and similarity, and encourages the creation of new and idiomatic structures.
Architects must study hard, practise a lot, and collect and study information diligently to widen their political horizons and creative vision, and acquire the attitude of finding solutions to all the problems of architectural creation by their own efforts.
Variety Raises the Level of the Formative, Artistic Qualities of Architectural Structures
Ensuring variety in architectural creation is a basic principle of architectural formation. An architectural structure that is idiomatic and rich in variety is pleasing to the eye and can have a strong emotional effect that is unique to the art of architecture.
Ensuring variety in architectural fonnation is a basic requirement for raising the level of formative, artistic qualities, getting rid of outmoded patterns and creating new and idiomatic architectural structures.
Architectural variety is based on variety as found in life and as found in nature. Because human life is rich in variety and nature exists in an immense variety, architecture, which reflects them, cannot but be rich in variety. Architecture has developed in the aspect of variety down through history, because man’s requirements for life are varied and creative individuality varies with the architect.
Variety in architectural formation implies, in its original sense, originality or the avoidance of repetition. Creating a variety of architectural structures means that an architect creates a variety of new and idiomatic fonns by his own efforts without repeating the existing fonns. Variety in architectural formation presupposes originality or the avoidance of repetition. Originality or the avoidance of repetition in architectural fonnation is the basic condition for effecting variety as well as the yardstick for evaluating the quality of variety.
Creating all architectural structures without repetition is the way to meet the requirements of human life and create characteristic ones.
Ensuring variety is the main condition for raising the level of fonnative, artistic qualities of architectural formation. Architectural variety ensures the creation of beautiful structures that can meet the people’s daily growing demands for life, accord with their aesthetic feelings and be appropriate for our beautiful land. A variety of individual architectural structures make architectural groups beautiful, a variety of architectural groups make streets beautiful, and a variety of streets make a city beautiful and satisfactory to the gaze.
Variety must not be regarded as absolute just because it is important in architectural creation.
The process of achieving variety in architectural formation is a process of creating a variety of formative beauty by combining different elements of architectural composition.
Ensuring the diversity of the elements of architectural composition themselves and selecting the units of composition properly and combining them rationally are basic to effecting variety in architectural fonnation.
The variety of urban architecture in general is achieved through the effect of contrast between the units of composition. In order to ensure variety in the architectural fonnation of a city, it is essential, therefore, to rationally combine the units of composition which have different purposes or have peculiar shapes, and even units with the same purpose, by diversifying their sizes and shapes. This is the basis on which to produce the effect of contrast between the units of composition as well as the condition for effecting architectural variety. The types of architectural structures should first be diverse . New types of architectural structures with diverse purposes and characters reflect the requirements and spirit of a new period. The new types of architectural structures, such as the International Friendship Exhibition, the Grand People’s Study House, the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace, the Changgwang Health Complex and the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, have all been created through a concentrated reflection of the requirements and spirit of the age of Juche, our people’s noble and beautiful sentiments, their political and moral qualities, and the advantages of the socialist system of our own style. Because of their revolutionary purposes, the new and diverse architectural types of our own style make great contributions to the ideological and emotional education of our people, and produce a deep aesthetic effect on them.
The variety of individual architectural spaces and the shapes of individual structures must be ensured. Variety in architectural spaces and shapes of structures is effected by the variety of the composition of the silhouettes, constituent elements and finishing details, and by the application of a variety of decorations, mural paintings and sculptures; the silhouettes of the spaces and shapes of architectural structures are formed by the outlines of planes and sections.
Modern aesthetics requires a diverse composition of all the silhouettes of architectural structures. Variety can be achieved by dealing with the composition elements and finishing details of structures with the same silhouettes in a diverse way, but such techniques can make an impression of being original, channing and beautiful when viewed only at a close distance; when viewed at a long distance they give the feeling of simplicity and similarity.
Variety must be effected not only in the composition of architectural types and individual structures, but also in the formation of architectural groups, streets, villages, towns and cities.
Variety in individual buildings is the prerequisite for variety in architectural groups, variety in these groups for variety in streets, and variety in streets for variety in villages, towns and cities. Therefore, each building must have an original shape to ensure variety in an architectural group, each architectural group must be formed in an idiomatic way to ensure variety in a street, and each street must be fonned in a diverse way to ensure variety in a town or city. Similar shapes of buildings, groups of buildings, or streets cannot ensure variety in the fonnation of architectural groups, streets or cities, and cannot overcome similarity in architectural creation.
In the formation of Kwangbok Street, a large variety of shapes, such as cylinder, windwheel, polygon, letter S, and steps, were adopted for apartment blocks, the main unit of composition, and they were combined with buildings with different missions and original shapes, namely, the Pyongyang Circus Theatre, the Youth Hotel, the Hyangmanru Restaurant, the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren’s Palace, and the Kwangbok Department Store, to ensure rich variety.
To ensure variety in the fonnation of a street, the street must be formed in three dimensions. The anangement of buildings on straight lines along the main street is an outmoded method.
In order to form a street in keeping with the requirements of our times, the people’s sentiments and modern aesthetic tastes, we must fonn it in three dimensions; the buildings that need to face the street should be located to face it, the density of buildings should be ensured by rational utilization of the space available while creating lawns, and buildings should be located to be pleasing to view from all directions. Buildings should be located freely and in a diverse way to ensure the three-dimensional quality of the street. The three-dimensional formation of the street makes it possible to organize convenient li nk s for dwelling functions, give the feeling of magnificence through the overlapping rows of buildings, and stimulate modem tastes by means of openness and depth.
In order to ensure variety and three-dimensional quality in the formation of streets, it is essential to select the types of buildings properly and locate buildings with different characteristics and shapes in each of them.
In the fonnation of a street, a variety of means and techniques of harmony should be applied, to effect overall hannony by taking into consideration the sizes and heights of buildings and the characteristics of their formation in a comprehensive manner.
It is important to sustain the architectural stress in the arrangement of buildings. The sustaining of this stress gives prominence to the composition units, which play an important role in architectural formation, and thus ensures unity and variety in overall architectural formation.There should be no instance of destroying the unity of overall formation by making the stress too conspicuous, nor should attention be diverted by setting up too many stresses. Architectural stresses must be located where they are indispensable from the point of view of the requirement of overall formation, and must be sustained clearly.
To effect variety in architectural formation, the elements that surround the structure should be composed in a characteristic and diverse manner. This is an important consideration. The surrounding elements should be selected in keeping with the purpose of the structure and the function and character of the outside space, and composed in a varied way to meet the fonnative requirements. The surrounding elements should be composed to ensure variety in the structure and the structural group.
Villages, towns and cities must also be fonned in a characteristic and diverse manner. To this end, variety must be effected in the selection of the types and shapes of buildings, and in the fonnation of architectural groups and streets.
The capital city of revolution, cities with relics of revolutionary history, port cities, coastal towns, mountain towns, tourism towns, ports of entry, coal-mining villages, logging villages and farm villages have different characteristics, so they should be fonned in such a way that their own characteristics are sustained distinctly. For this purpose, monumental structures must be selected and located in keeping with the character of each community, their outlines and shapes must be composed differently and in a diverse way, and architectural structures should be located rationally to suit the conditions of the terrain. Architectural structures of national form should be combined rationally with those of modem form to sustain national tastes in the overall fonnation of urban communities.
An important task at present is to fonn a variety of prefabricated buildings constructed with components of the same specifications. To this end, the space for each standardized unit should be made the main unit of composition, and variety should be effected in the shapes of buildings by combining them rationally.
Sustaining the impact of natural surroundings and scenic elements is especially important in creating architectural variety. Natural scenery is the most beautiful and varied of everything that surrounds us. There are various kinds of trees, flowers, rocks, water and mountains in nature. An architect who can create architectural structures that harmonize with the multifarious beauty of nature deserves to be called an able and talented architect.
Architects must bring human life close to nature by using a variety of techniques and talents, and form architectural spaces so that people can enjoy the beauty of nature to the full.
In order to integrate various features of natural scenery in architecture, it is important to open the space, instead of shutting it up. If you separate urban architectural space from the natural environment by shutting up the space, it will be impossible to improve architectural variety, and people will be unable to appreciate and enjoy nature.
In addition to integrating nature in architectural formation, we must hannonize architectural fonnation with nature.
Man is fond of nature, and enjoying nature is one of his life requirements. People like to visit parks after the day’s work, on holidays and festive occasions because they want to enjoy nature. There is always human life where there is the beauty of nature, and there is always beautiful nature where there is human life.
Life that knows no beauty of nature is always drab. People prefer architectural space that draws nature into itself and harmoni z es well with nature, and they require such architectural formation. Drawing nature into the architectural space and harmonizing them is very important in providing people with more engaging and active living conditions.
The method of opening the architectural space and drawing nature into it alone is not enough to ensure perfect harmony of architectural structures and natural surroundings. For their perfect harmony, the method of reproducing the epitome of beautiful nature in the architectural space must be actively adopted. If the architectural space is formed in this manner, people can feel cheerful and pleasant, as if they were always living and working in nature, with fresh air and water.
Reproducing the epitome of beautiful nature in the urban architectural space or in the internal space of structures is of great significance in enhancing architectural harmony by hannonizing architectural space and nature.
The Mansudae Fountain Park is an example of the reproduction of an epitome of beautiful nature. In the park there is a pond, several fountains of different kinds, grotesque rocks and waterfalls. In that park, the laughter and songs of the working people of the capital city can always be heard. The park is always crowded with lively people as if on a festive occasion. It is a microcosm of not only the beautiful scenery of our country, but also the happy lives of our people.
The purpose of ensuring variety in architectural formation is to satisfy the people’s aesthetic and emotional demands by creating fascinating and beautiful architectural shapes.
Architectural shapes should not only satisfy the demands of the times, the people’s life requirements and modern aesthetic tastes, but also accord with the laws of aesthetics, and the system and order of architectural formation. Architectural shapes, no matter how rich in variety, will fail to sustain channing beauty, but on the contrary, give people a shabby and empty feeling unless they accord with the laws of aesthetics and the system and order of architectural formation. Architectural beauty must be the beauty of organic unity of the essential beauty of life and visual beauty, namely, beauty that is closely linked with human life.
Architectural variety must be thoroughly of the working class, because the basic aim of ensuring variety in architectural formation is to satisfy the aesthetic demands of the working class and the masses of the people, and give them pleasure. If architectural variety merely serves to satisfy some individuals’ tastes and quest for fame, it will not only fail to meet the interests and modern aesthetic and emotional demands of the working class and the masses, but also end in representing the interests and decadent aesthetic requirements of the bourgeoisie. Variety in architectural formation must be thoroughly of the Party and of the people.
Variety in architectural formation has a number of characteristics that distinguishes from that of other genres of art. Works of literature and other arts are created singly in the main, and are appreciated by individual people, whereas architectural structures are created in mutual relationships and are appreciated by people in a unified and comprehensive manner and at the same time. In production of the works of literature and other arts, therefore, there arises no problem of fonnative unity with other works. In architecture, however, ensuring formative unity with neighbouring structures is very important.
It is impermissible to use various kinds of qualitatively different elements of composition at random, contrary to the logic and system of formation, on the excuse of ensuring variety. That will result in the disorder and crudeness of architectural formation, and destroy the formative, artistic qualities of the architectural structures themselves.
Architectural variety must always cater to the modem aesthetic tastes of one’s own people.
Aesthetic tastes change with the changes of the times, and architectural forms must acquire variety in keeping with modem aesthetic tastes. The modern aesthetic tastes of the masses are the noblest, healthiest and most advanced tastes. The masses require architectural variety that truthfully reflects the greatness of the working-class leader, the rapid developments in the political, economic, cultural and all other fields in the Juche era, and their own requirements for life and their aesthetic demands.
In order to properly ensure variety in architectural formation, architects must acquire the ability to discover new and characteristic things in nature and real life. Not everyone can discover them even though nature and real life are varied, and changing them into architectural shapes is not easy, either. Architects must steadily develop the ability to discover new and original things liked by their people from nature and real life, and incorporate them in architectural shapes.
There should be no bias towards variety in the formative beauty of shapes allegedly for the sake of ensuring variety in architectural formation. This is the seed bed of formalism. Variety in architectural formation must always be ensured through the organic unity of function and stmcture.
Variety in architectural formation also requires fresh and diverse techniques of design. Design techniques affect the quality of variety in architectural formation. Architects must steadfastly oppose stereotyped and imitative techniques of design, and always inquire into new and original ones. They must be able to use all building materials skilfully by subordinating them to their design techniques. Only then can they prove the effect of their original design techniques, and ensure variety in architectural formation.
It is important to combine variety and unity in striving to achieve architectural hannony.
Architectural variety and unity have an inseparably close relationship. Varied and yet unified formation means genuine unity, and variety that is harmoniously unified is genuine variety.
Ensuring variety in architectural formation is extremely complex, and requires architects to display their creative ability and talent to the highest. Architects must display their creative ability and talent to the utmost and fully implement the principle of variety in architectural fonnation.
Architecture and Guidance
Architects Are Creative Workers and Operations Officers
The history of architecture that started with the emergence of dugout dwellings goes back thousands of years. Throughout this period, architects have done a great deal of work for humanity, created lasting wealth that is the pride and honour of the various times and nations, and performed meritorious services that will be remembered for ever. This inspires architects with great pride and confidence and with a strong sense of the mission they have assumed with responsibility to their times and history.
Architects can make greater strides in architectural creation only when they have a clear understanding of the importance and significance of architectural creation, and are deeply aware of their mission and duty to humanity.
Architects are creative workers and supervisors.
The existence of architectural structures would be inconceivable apart from the creative activities of architects. Architectural structures that require a knowledge of sophisticated science and technology can never be created by anybody but specialists. When I say that the masses create architectural structures, I mean that their aspirations and demands are basic to architectural creation, and that designs are put into effect with their active participation— not that just anybody can conceive an architectural idea, elaborate it into a plan and produce a design. Architectural designs can only be made by architects who are possessed of the knowledge of architectural science and technology and the skills of architectural creation.
An architectural structure becomes a reality through the stages of conceiving the idea, planning, designing and constructing.
Each stage of architectural creation involves the creative activity of the architect. The process of independent conception of the idea and the planning of the project, and independent designing and creation is the architect’s involvement in architectural creation. Without independence, it is impossible to create something new. An architect without independence cannot discover new things even though he delves into reality, nor can he conceive an idea and plan the project and make the design using his own head. Independence in architectural creation is the creative attitude and mode of activity of an architect. It is the basis for the creation of an architectural structure of a new form and content.
An architectural structure must be fresh. Its freshness is an indispensable requirement that emanates from the nature of architecture as an art. Since originality is the essential character of architecture, as is the case with other arts, architectural structures must always be fresh and characteristic.
Because of the creative nature of the activities involved in architectural creation and the originality of architecture, architects are called creative workers.
If an architect is to be a genuine creative worker, he must create a fresh and characteristic architectural structure each time. An architect who knows how to create new things with fresh images is an able creative worker.
If they are to fulfil their mission and duty as creative workers, architects must, first of all, raise the level of their creative ability and qualifications.
Their creative ability and qualifications guarantee their creativeness and independence. Architects interpret and create their works depending on the level of their qualifications.
An architect’s creative ability and qualifications are an organic combination of his revolutionary consciousness, political views and a wide range of knowledge, including technological expertise and artistic skills.
Only when they have a high level of creative ability and qualifications can architects acquire a deep understanding of the essence of real life and the people’s requirements for independent and creative life, select them and embody them in the content of architectural structures, discover fresh things in nature and social life, and create fresh and original architectural structures. The higher the level of their creative qualifications, the broader and deeper observation of things and phenomena they can make, the better they can understand them and the more keenly they can feel them. This is the way to discover new things and make active use of them in architectural creation. A high level of creative qualifications also enables them to establish the system and order of formation in keeping with the mission and basic requirements of architectural structures, skilfully apply a variety of means and techniques of harmony, and carry out the delicate and complex work of architectural creation with success.
The basic task of architects in improving their creative ability and qualifications is to acquire a deep understanding of Party policy. Party policy is the guideline to architectural creation as well as the cornerstone that underlies all the processes of architectural creation, ranging from the conception and elaboration of ideas to design and construction.
Architectural creation is a creative activity to realize the Party’s plan of architecture. Without knowledge of Party policy, it is impossible to carry out the Party’s magnificent plan successfully, find out the requirements of the times and burning questions arising in real life or conduct architectural creation on one’s own initiative.
When planning the construction of Changgwang Street as a starting point of revolutionary change in architectural creation, our Party made sure that highrise buildings of slender structure were constructed there. This was aimed mainly at making the street attractive and ensuring the three-dimensional depth of the heart of Pyongyang, to enhance the magnificence and splendour of the capital city. Recently, however, some architects have shown a tendency to locate buildings of slender structure in new streets and cities, evidently trying to reproduce Changgwang Street. This is due to their misunderstanding of the Party’s intention of having slender buildings constructed in Changgwang Street as an important principle of city fonnation. The idea of constructing such buildings in new cities and streets is simply an imitation. Streets and cities to be newly formed should be constructed in a fresh and characteristic way, instead of following an existing pattern, so that they meet the demands of the period and accord with their geographical features.
Architects occasionally make plans of design and formation in contradiction to the Party’s intention, mainly because they are preoccupied with business routine and neglect the study of Party policy. The heavier the pressure of work the harder they must study Party policy and the sincerer efforts they must make to grasp the Party’s plans and aims. They must always bear in mind that their expertise can prove its worth only when they have a correct and deep knowledge of Party policy.
Another important task in the process of increasing their creative ability is to continue to raise the levels of their technical knowledge and skill. A high level of technical qualifications provides the conditions for independent and creative architectural activities. It is the source of creative thinking and planning. A high level of technical expertise enables architects to view existing works critically, analyze them correctly and create fresh and idiomatic architectural structures by their own efforts, without looking to other people for help.
Architects must have a good command of all the means and techniques of harmony applicable to architectural creation. This is the basic requirements for raising their technical level. Their technical level finds expression in their practical activities. Their creative practice is the process of skilful application of the means and techniques of harmony. Only when they have an ample knowledge of the significance of symmetry and asymmetry, the methods of setting axes and effecting balance and other means and techniques of harmony can they create a monumental masterpiece whatever project they undertake.
Architects should be versed in modern science and technology, which provide the possibility of creating advanced new architectural structures and innovating architectural form and content. No matter how fresh and characteristic a fonn they may conceive and design, it will end in a mere castle in the air unless it is guaranteed by science and technology. We occasionally see architectural designs being amended in the stage of construction on site. That is because the designers failed to calculate the possibility of realizing them by ignoring modern science and technology. A good knowledge of modem science and technology is a prerequisite for the development of architecture. Architects are creative workers who form spaces for life and production in all fields needed for social life, a variety of architectural structures for the production of material and spiritual wealth, villages, towns and cities in keeping with modem aesthetics. Therefore, only when they have a broad and profound knowledge of technical engineering can they find comprehensive solutions, in organic unity, to the problems relating to the rationality of dwelling function, the rationality of hygiene, stmctural rationality and economic effect to ensure the utility of architectural structures. Architects must acquire the knowledge of everything needed for life and activity. They must study hard to acquire the knowledge of the latest developments in technical engineering, that is advancing by leaps and bounds, the knowledge of the technique, of handling new building materials and other aspects of technical engineering for ensuring the modernization of architectural structures. They must set their sights high, and study with detennination and dedication. They must apply themselves to the study of foreign languages and widely adopt advanced foreign experience and successes. They must train themselves in a planned and systematic way to improve their creative skills. Studying hard is the way to raise the level of their creative qualifications and create excellent architectural structures. They must study and train themselves diligently and energetically to acquire a high level of creative qualifications, steadfastness, audacity and perseverance.
Architects must have the concept of space. A deep concept of space is an important qualification that is required of an architect. An architect is an artist of space, so to speak, in the same way as a writer is an artist of language. Only when he is capable of drawing spaces in his mind can an architect truthfully represent people’s aesthetic aspirations, aesthetic feelings and their lives, closely examine the perspective effect of space, whether or not his new plan accords with the character of the project, harmoni z es with the surroundings and meets the requirements for the formation of a city, elaborate his plan and create an idiomatic architectural structure.
An architect also needs a high level of talent in fine art. A high level of this talent enables him to put his plan into a drawing. If the level of this talent is low, he will be unable to put his plan, no matter how good, into a blueprint, and the plan will remain in the realm of fancy. Architects must spare neither time nor effort to develop the ability to express the plans they have conceived in their minds themselves.
In order to improve their creative qualifications, architects must apply themselves to practical training. Practice is a prerequisite for the creation of good architectural works. Architects must not regard practice as a burdensome task that is performed under the control of somebody else, but consider it to be the primary requirement of creative life and apply themselves to it anywhere and at any time.
If they are to carry out their mission and duty with credit, architects must put all their ardour into the creative work of architecture. Basically, art itself requires the input of energy. No piece of art can be created without effort.
Spending a great deal of time over a design does not guarantee success in architectural creation. Architects’ clear ideological vision, their creative enthusiasm and their qualifications, not their time, are the secret of success in architectural creation. If they are ideologically activated and are afire with creative enthusiasm, they can boldly and confidently push ahead with the design, no matter how complex, and complete it with flying colours in a short span of time.
An architectural design is the fruit of an architect’s ideology, enthusiasm and qualifications. His deep thinking, burning enthusiasm and strenuous and stubborn effort can produce an unimaginably high pace of architectural creation, and raise the level of the quality of his designs incomparably. If he boldly applies himself to his work with a high degree of political awareness and creative enthusiasm, he can produce good results even in a short span of time; if he lacks political awareness and creative enthusiasm, he cannot make a good design no matter how high his qualifications and no matter how much time he spends on it.
Architects must put all their ardour into their work at all stages of the understanding of reality, conception of ideas, planning and design.
Architects must enhance their sense of responsibility and their role.
To use a military metaphor, an architectural design is a document for the operations to realize the Party’s architectural plan, and the architect is the operations officer who draws up the document for the operations. Design turns the details for the implementation of the Party’s architectural plan into a drawing, and construction is undertaken in accordance with the drawing, and thus becomes a reality.
The design is basic to construction.
The design is the basis for the calculation of labour, materials and funds, as well as budgeting, for the project. The design should be elaborate and feasible. Elaborateness is the essential characteristic of an architectural design. A design that is not elaborate may create confusion in the stage of construction and make it necessary to do the same work over again. A slip in dotting or in drawing a line can result in an enormous waste of state materials and funds. A design that lacks details makes it impossible to draw up the state plan accurately and seriously hampers production in related enterprises.
An architect must pay attention to the colours and patterns of the finishing material for rooms without overlooking the slightest thing. He must also calculate the types of door handles, the shapes of hinges and the amounts needed, and even the number of screws required to fix them.
Socialist-communist architecture is for the people. In construction, therefore, the point in question is not money, but an accurate reflection of the people’s aspirations and demands in the design. This does not imply, however, that materials and funds can be used without care. There is a saying that the architect cuts even each grain of foxtail millet before he eats it. This means that architects should be extremely careful and meticulous.
Architects must adhere to the principle of constructing more attractive, durable and many more buildings of the same standard with the same materials. Since the design is a document for building operations, the architect who draws it up must have a full knowledge of reality and a detailed knowledge of the nation’s economic situation if he is to fulfil his duty as an operations officer. This is a prerequisite for making a feasible design.
A design that does not reflect reality or does not take into account the nation’s economic situation is no more than a scribble on scrap paper. Architects must always delve into reality to acquire a detailed understanding of the masses’ evaluation of architectural structures and their demands, as well as a full knowledge of the amounts of production at each factory in terms of items and specifications.
Architects must be responsible for their designs to the times and revolution, and take the position of masters of the design.
Their position of masters is the basic factor that enables them to overcome all types of formalism in the sphere of design, raise the quality of designs and fulfil their duties as creators and operations officers.
Some architects consider that all that they have to do to fulfil their duties is to draw their designs and send them to construction sites, and some architects think they have created good works if they made sure that their drawings are beautifully coloured.
Architects are neither fine artists nor sculptors. Drawing a brilliant elevation of a building or making a model first and then getting approval for it and adapting the plane to it contrary to the normal order, and paying no attention to construction is an expression of an irresponsible attitude, sheer formalism and expediency.
Beautiful colouring of drawings and making good models are not important. What is important is to make designs in keeping with the requirements of the times and the people’s aspirations, designs with good forms and good contents. The designers that make designs with good fonns and contents, designs that can meet the demands of the times and accord with the people’s aspirations, can be called designers with the attitude of masters. Architects must always maintain the standpoint of the Party and the state, and express the attitude of masters in every single dot and line.
Architects also need the power of imagination. A conceived idea can grow and ripen in the soil of rich creative imagination. Architects also need the power of imagination. A conceived idea can grow and ripen in the soil of rich creative imagination. An architect with the power of imagination can set a lofty goal and aim at an ambitious target. His imagination must accord with the requirements of the times and the people’s aspirations. Imagination that contradicts the spirit of the times and is divorced from the people’s lives is not merely useless, it is downright harmful.
If they are to fulfill their duties as creators and operations officers with credit, architects must transfonn themselves on revolutionary lines, and assimilate themselves to the working class. Success in architectural creation depends on their ideology. If they are steeped in outmoded ideas, they cannot create revolutionary architectural structures for the people. They create the space for life and activities to produce material and cultural wealth needed for the revolution and construction, and through this they contribute to encouraging people to take an active part in the revolution and construction.
Because of their professional characteristics, architects are vulnerable to outmoded ideas, have few opportunities to undergo revolutionary training and are liable to fall prey to fame-seeking in the course of architectural creation. If the work of revolutionizing them and assimilating them to the working class is neglected, heterogeneous ideas may infiltrate their minds.
Socialist-communist architecture can be successfully created only through the struggle against the reactionary architectural trends of the exploitative society still remaining in the field of architecture. The survivals of the unhealthy techniques of forming various architectural styles, leftovers from the exploitative society, can only be overcome through the revolutionary transformation of architects and their assimilation to the working class.
For their revolutionary transformation and assimilation to the working class, it is essential to step up their ideological education. Education in the Juche idea is basic to this ideological education . Education in the Juche idea can equip them with the ideological, spiritual and moral qualities and qualifications required of communist revolutionaries of the Juche type.
Revolutionary organizational life must be intensified among architects in order to transfonn them on revolutionary lines and assimilate them to the working class. Architectural creation in a socialist society requires a high degree of mental striving, creative enthusiasm, revolutionary spirit, organization, discipline and collectivist spirit. Party organizations must ensure that architects participate faithfully in organizational life with a correct outlook on the organization, and that their organizational life is closely linked with the implementation of their revolutionary tasks.
Revolutionary practice is an important way of transforming people on revolutionary lines and assimilating them to the working class. Revolutionary practice is a powerful means of transforming their ideology as well as a school for cultivating a strong revolutionary will in them. People are steadily trained and grow up to be revolutionaries in the difficult and complex practical struggle to transform nature and society. Through the practical work of creating revolutionary architecture, architects make their loyalty to the Party and the leader, their devotion to the revolutionary cause of Juche, and their spirit of serving the people firmer, and they cultivate an indomitable revolutionary will, a stubborn fighting spirit and perseverance. Architects must steadily transform themselves on revolutionary lines, assimilate themselves to the working class and prepare themselves to be architects of the Juche type in the course of architectural creation.
Collectivism Must Be Ensured in the Guidance of Architectural Creation
Ensuring collectivism in the guidance of architectural creation is the basic guarantee for improving architectural quality through the enlistment of the collective wisdom and efforts of architects and officials in the field of architecture. Collectivist guidance can prevent individual officials from giving arbitrary and bureaucratic guidance to architectural creation and ensure objectivity and fairness in the guidance of creative work.
Collective examination of architectural designs must be stepped up in order to ensure the collective guidance of architectural creation. The strengthening of collective examination of designs can ensure the Party’s unified leadership of architectural creation, strengthen comradely cooperation and unity in creative work, and enable architects to display their creative individuality to the utmost.
The system of collective examination is the basic guarantee for translating the Party’s architectural plans and aims thoroughly into reality, and satisfying the people’s demands and aspirations.
The examination of designs by the design institutions themselves cannot ensure the production of good designs. If they investigate their own designs, they cannot make a fair examination of them on Party principles, nor can they ensure a high quality of designs.
To build the state examination committee properly and enhance its members’ sense of responsibility and role is the basic condition for improving the collective examination of architectural designs.
The state examination committee should be composed of able and seasoned architectural designers who have acquired the revolutionary outlook on the leader, a clear sense of Party’s outlook and political vision, and of experienced field officials. Only then can the committee examine designs in tune with the Party’s political line and the working-class line, and operate effectively.
It is important for the committee members to adhere to the principle of loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people in the examination of designs. They must analyze and evaluate the designs with a clear sense of the Party's outlook and political vision, and examine their ideological content, utility, formative and artistic quality, and structural rationality in a comprehensive way. This is a prerequisite for raising the political, scientific and technological levels of design examination.
The examiners must share opinions and discuss the designs with the aim of helping architects achieve perfection in their designs. This is the way for the committee to perform its mission and duty satisfactorily. This is also consonant with the purpose of organizing the state examination committee.
Effective political and technological examinations of designs are important parts of their collective examination.
Effective political examination of architectural designs makes it possible to incorporate the requirements of Party policy and the people’s life demands at each stage and at each period of the development of the revolution properly in architectural structures. For effective political examination, the examiners must acquire a deep understanding of the Party’s requirements for the project in hand, and on this basis examine in detail how the architect has embodied them in his design and help him to correct any mistakes.
While giving priority to the political examination of architectural designs, the committee must combine it properly with technological examination. The technological examination of designs is the assessment of the architectural plan. It appraises their utility, formative and artistic quality, and structural rationality. The technological examination must give substantial assistance to the architect and lead him to establish a logical formation system and order, and plan and form architectural structures properly on the basis of the Party’s Juche-oriented architectural ideas and theories.
For effective examination of architectural designs, the examiners must be better equipped with the Party’s Juche-oriented architectural ideas and theories than anybody else, besides having rich creative experience. Only then can they follow the Party’s political line in the examination and give architects assistance to create architectural structures in keeping with the Party's plans and aims. Examiners’ rich creative experience enables them to discover mistakes in architectural formation and help the architect to polish his design in the direction of perfection.
Thoroughly overcoming subjectivism and formalism is important in the examination of designs. If the examiners scrutinize designs in a subjective, formalistic manner, they cannot correct errors in them, thus causing enormous loss to the state.
In the collective examination of architectural designs, the examiners must not investigate only the visible exterior shapes, but examine everything in detail—the plane and section plans, the possibility of finding solutions to structural problems, the application of construction equipment, facility of construction, conditions for the use of building materials and economic effect.
It is far from acceptable to make an assessment after just looking around the object for examination. Examiners should do ten or even a hundred calculations before they bring one matter to attention, give the architect substantial advice helpful to his creative work and offer various ideas for remedying shortcomings. Examiners should refrain from insisting on their own subjective opinions and dictating them to the architect.
The problems raised in the course of examination should be discussed frankly at a meeting of examiners until agreement is reached from the academic and theoretical point of view. The collective agreement should be announced as the result of examination and made a rule. If examiners shower opinions on the architect they will confuse him or her and fail to ensure the collectivity of examination.
A strict regime and order should be established to prevent one or two persons in authority from making decisions on important projects according to their own tastes and at their discretion, and to prevent individual officials from dictating their own subjective opinions to the architect, abusing their authority and ignoring the collective agreement. In particular, ignoring decisions of the state examination committee and arbitrarily changing architectural designs is not to be tolerated. If individuals’ tastes and arbitrary judgement are allowed free play in the examination of architectural designs, the collective examination will be totally meaningless and end in the production of poor designs.
The examination of architectural designs should be undertaken from the stage of drafting plans. It should be conducted purposefully and in a planned manner as routine work. In the examination of architectural designs the creative individuality of architects should be respected and encouraged to the full, so as to help the conception of fresh ideas. The collective examination of architectural designs should ensure that architects fully implement the principle of loyalty to the Party, the working class and the people in architectural design work, and sustain their creative individuality for the production of fresh and idiomatic designs. The examiners should make a comprehensive study of the technical directions before they start examination, and on the basis of the technical directions draft design plans beforehand to discover useful ideas that the architects have failed to conceive, and should awaken them to these ideas. To guide, help and awaken architects to new ideas, the examiners must be fully aware of the architects' level of preparedness and their creative individuality. Bearing in mind that they are responsible for the guidance of architectural creation to the state, the examiners must, in unity with architects in mind and purpose, hold discussions with them earnestly and frankly, always searching for their good points, and reinforcing them, and remedying shortcomings.
The collective examination must not be confined to the blueprint stage; it must continue until the architectural structures are completed. Because the stage of formation designing does not go beyond the range of plane, section, perspective and elevation drawings, the examination at that stage cannot take into account solutions to all the problems of architecture. Continued and detailed deliberation on the formation of each room through to the data of finishing touches in the stage of technical design, and continued improvement of anything that needs improvement of structures under construction through on-site examination is the way to achieve excellent structures. In the guidance of construction, senior officials should refrain from ignoring agreements reached by the state examination committee and dictating their own subjective opinions to their subordinates.
A completed design is a legal document. An individual official who arbitrarily changes a completed design commits an illegal act.
A design that has to be changed must undergo the proper legal procedure.
It is important in strengthening collective examination to enhance the role of the design examination section of the construction headquarters. The staff of the construction headquarters, who examine designs zealously at the stage of designing the formation of structures, must not neglect examination at the stage of construction.
A strict system of reviewing creative work should be established. Reviewing creative work is very important in awakening architects to new ideas, helping them to correct their errors and raising the level of their political and practical qualifications. Critical evaluation of finished architectural structures at the stage of review of creative work is indispensable for the development of architecture. The review should be made critically from the point of view of Party policy, science and technology. New architectural structures can be created and developed quickly by discarding bad elements and adopting good ones on the basis of the experience and lessons of previous creative work.
The Party’s idea and theory of Juche architecture are the only standards for the review of creative work.
At the review, good architectural structures that accord with the Party’s plan and aims should be correctly analyzed on the basis of the Party’s idea and theory of Juche architecture, and high skills and effective techniques should be clearly publicized for effective application in future architectural creation.
In addition to publicizing good examples, the review of architectural creation must seriously criticize and promptly overcome shortcomings. If imitations of foreign architectural structures and the ideological elements of reactionary architectural trends common in capitalist countries appear, there must be a concentrated attack on them. Architects must work hard to make innovations and new advances, learning from good things and overcoming shortcomings in architectural creation.
Strengthening control by the masses is also important in ensuring the collective guidance of creative work.
Architects must acquire the revolutionary and people-orientated style of creative work by going among the masses, heeding their opinions and creating architectural structures to meet their demands.
Meeting to hear the masses’ criticisms should be widely organized, and the masses should be encouraged to participate actively in such meetings in order that their voices should be heard.
When the project for the Grand People’s Study House was under discussion, the great leader instructed that it should be built in Korean style. In order to implement this instruction, the Party got a variety of plans drawn up and exhibited in the People's Palace of Culture for the masses’ criticisms. People from all sections of the population in Pyongyang participated. They all said that Korean style was the best. This convinced the architects more clearly of the validity of the great leader’s plan. They made a firm decision to construct the Grand People’s Study House in Korean style in keeping with the leader’s plan and the people’s desire.
To ensure collective guidance of architectural creation and intensify the social education of architects, the Architects Union must enhance its role.
The Architects Union is the social organization of architects and construction technicians in our country, the mission of which is to equip its members firmly with the Party’s idea and theory of Juche architecture, and struggle to implement them.
The Architects Union must equip its members solidly with the Party’s idea and theory of Juche architecture, and help them to create architectural structures of our own style.
The most important task of the Architects Union is to give its members effective ideological education. The union must imbue its members with the Party’s idea and theory of Juche architecture, and ensure that they carry out their creative work on the basis of the Party’s Juche-orientated policy of architectural creation and prevent the appearance of the slightest heterogeneous element in the field of architectural creation. The union must give its members a clear understanding of the reactionary nature of the various architectural trends now being spread in capitalist societies. In addition, it must step up such education to prevent any deviation that may occur in the work of architectural creation.
Another important task of the Architects Union is to hold academic seminars, joint critiques, symposiums, short training courses, educational visits, meetings for the publicizing of creative experiences, exhibition and various other functions in order to widen the architectural vision of its members and raise the level of their qualifications.
The Architects Union must organize national design contests for prizes in a planned manner, and arrange appropriately the production of excellent works to be sent to international architectural festivals in order to stimulate creative zeal among its members. The union should also organize prize-winning design contests as well as architectural work contests separately according to the design grades of its members to stimulate their creative zeal and improve their qualifications.
The Architects Union must also work efficiently to stimulate public interest in architectural creation. It should give frequent public lectures on architectural subjects to the working people, publish architectural infonnation through the mass media and organize exhibitions so as to increase public interest in architectural creation and carry out creative work by attracting intense public interest.
When it is necessary for the state to create an important monumental architectural structure, the Architects Union must organize a design contest for the prize and ensure that competent architects participate. The architectural works presented for the design contest must be subject to the opinions of the broad sections of the working people.
An important task of the Architects Union is to organize its members in architectural creation. The union must conduct effective organizational and political work among its members so that they strive for architectural creation with a high degree of consciousness that they are the masters of architectural creation.
Another important aspect of the union’s work among the membership is to make sure that all the members voluntarily observe its rules and faithfully carry out the assignments given to them by the union.
The Architects Union must strengthen its primary organizations and operate them properly. The primary organizations are the grass-roots organizations of the Architects Union, and they are the bases of the creative life of its members. Only when these primary organizations are strengthened and operated efficiently can the organizational and ideological life of the union’s members be improved and the Party’s policy on architectural creation in each period be carried out.
The Architects Union must properly supervise and approve the assessment of the grades of technical qualifications to improve the technical qualifications of architects.
The Architects Union must develop active architectural exchanges with its counterparts in other countries and the International Union of Architects to give wide publicity to our ideas and the theory of Juche architecture, and adopt foreign architectural achievements in a timely manner.
Reinforcing the Party’s leadership of the Architects Union is essential for making it a revolutionary and militant organization unfailingly loyal to the Party. Strengthened Party leadership can ensure that the Architects Union works in keeping with the Party’s requirements and establishes the Party’s monolithic ideological system in the union. An important aspect of Party leadership of the Architects Union is the building up of the staff of the union. Party organizations must strengthen the ranks of union officials with people who are unfailingly loyal to the Party and the leader, and enhance the independence of the union organizations so that the union officials carry out their duties on their own initiative.
The Architects Union must make active contributions to the development of architecture in our country by strengthening the collective guidance of architectural creation to make innovations in this work, and by positively mobilizing architects in the implementation of the Party’s policy on architectural creation.
Party Leadership of Architectural Creation Must Be Strengthened
Socialist-communist architecture is revolutionary architecture, the basic mission of which is to serve the revolution and construction.
The Party’s leadership of architectural creation means acquiring a regular understanding of the implementation of the architectural ideas and policies of the Party and the leader, and taking active measures to carry them out.
Strengthening the Party’s leadership of architectural creation is the way to ensure the correct implementation of the architectural plan of the working-class leader and the Party’s aims, and the creation of architectural structures of the Party, the working class and the people.
Party organizations must regularly check to see whether their subordinate units are implementing the Party’s plans and aims successfully, and if not, find out the reason why they are not, and take active measures to remedy the situation.
Architects must do the work of architectural creation relying thoroughly on their Party organizations and make conscious efforts to receive guidance and control from their Party organizations.
The working-class Party must take in hand the work of architectural creation and steadily intensify its guidance and control.
The system of Party leadership of the work of architectural creation must be thoroughly established. This means ensuring that architects acquire the revolutionary attitude of accepting the Party’s policy on architectural creation without any question, and champion and carry it out. They must ensure that architectural creation is conducted under the unified leadership of the Party Centre. In order to establish a strict system of Party leadership in architectural creation, it is imperative to resolve all the important problems of creative work solely in accordance with the decisions of the Party Centre and establish a revolutionary habit of unconditionally carrying out the tasks organized in accordance with the decisions of the Party Centre.
An important matter in strengthening Party leadership of architectural creation is to give effective guidance to the Party life of the officials and Party members in the field of architectural creation. Effective guidance of their Party life can enhance their sense of responsibility and role, and thus enable them to find successful solutions to all problems arising in architectural creation.
An important question that requires emphasis in the guidance of the Party life of its members in the field of architectural creation is that of firmly establishing the revolutionary world outlook of Juche among them. Party organizations must get down to the work of equipping the officials and Party members in the field of architectural creation solidly with the revolutionary outlook of Juche to ensure that they work faithfully for the Party and the revolution and for the working class and other people.
It is important in the guidance of the Party life of the officials and Party members in the field of architectural creation to discover unhealthy elements in their creative work before it is too late, and eliminate them. Party organizations must combat and promptly do away with fame-seeking, formalism, art for art’s sake, imitationism and all the other unhealthy creative attitudes that find expression among architects.
It is also important in the guidance of their Party life to ensure that they link their Party life closely with the implementation of their revolutionary tasks, and carry out these tasks in a responsible manner. There can be no Party life that is separate from the implementation of revolutionary tasks. The purpose of improving Party life is to encourage the Party members to carry out their revolutionary tasks with credit. In order to link Party life closely with the implementation of revolutionary tasks, it is essential to make sure that talks with individual Party members, Party study sessions, Party assignments, the review of Party life and all the other li nk s of the guidance of Party life are combined closely with the implementation of revolutionary tasks, and that the Party life of its members is evaluated by the standard of how they have carried out their revolutionary tasks. A Party member who fails to carry out his revolutionary task with credit cannot be regarded as conducting his Party life well or as a faithful Party member.
Another important aspect of the guidance of their Party life is to see that they have a proper attitude toward their Party organizations, and participate faithfully in Party life.
In order to give effective Party guidance to the work of architectural creation, Party officials must improve their work method and style. The Party officials in the field of architectural creation must always mix with architects, see how they create their architectural works, how they implement the Party’s policies and how they participate in Party life while holding talks and discussions with them, and help them to find solutions to their problems.
Party officials in the field of architectural creation must set high targets and work in an expansive way. Only then can architects work with strong creative desire, revolutionary enthusiasm and stamina. They must not become preoccupied only with their immediate tasks, but be efficient in the work of developing Juche architecture on a long-term basis.
Party officials in the field of architectural creation must always be modest and straightforward both at work and outside work, and refrain from putting on airs or assuming authority.
The Party officials should make unremitting efforts to raise the level of their political and practical qualifications. If the level of these qualifications is low, they will be unable to work efficiently with architects and develop Party work in keeping with the requirements for the development of the revolution. They must acquire the revolutionary habit of studying, study the great leader’s works and Party documents in breadth and depth, master the Juche theory and method of Party work, and learn as much as they can about architectural science and technology and the knowledge of economic management.
Today our Party is struggling with the ultimate aim of building communist society, the ideal of mankind, on this land before any other country, and realizing the people’s noble desire to lead the most civilized, richest and happiest life in the world. In order to achieve this ultimate aim, we must continue to construct. We must construct modern factories in a big way in many parts of the country. This will strengthen the material and technological foundations of communism. We must also continue to construct houses, public buildings, parks and pleasure grounds. This is the way to transfonn villages, towns and cities into a magnificent and beautiful communist paradise, and create living conditions for the people who will live in the communist society.
Without architectural creation, it will be impossible to hope for success in the construction of socialism and communism or to satisfy the people’s material and cultural demands. The work of architectural creation must continue not only in the whole period of building socialism and communism, but also down through generations as long as human beings exist on this land. This is a worthwhile undertaking that will continue on a more gigantic scale with the passage of time.
All architects must effect a great new upsurge in all spheres of architectural creation—urban, rural, industrial and public architecture—in step with the requirements of the reality in which the work of architectural creation grows more and more gigantic as the revolution develops in depth and as the people’s standard of living improves.
We must carry on the work of architectural creation firmly under the guidance of the great leader’s idea of Juche architecture and our Party’s original theory of architectural creation, and safeguard Juche architecture to the end.
All architects must push ahead with the work of architectural creation more forcefully under the wise guidance of the Party and the leader, and on the basis of the proud success they have achieved in the field of architectural creation, develop architecture in our country onto a higher plane, and thereby ensure a full flowering of the great leader’s idea of Juche architecture.