Issuu

VOL—01.

YANGWOOK KANG

INTERCONNECTED LANDSCAPES

ABSTRACT

한반도의 비무장지대(DMZ)는 흔히 두 개의 상반된 정치 체제를 가르는 군사적 경계로 이해된다. 그러나 70여 년의 세월이 흐른 지금, DMZ는 단순한 정치적 대립을 넘어선 또 하나의 풍경이 되었다. 한 민족이 공유하던 일상과 기억, 문화와 감각이 서로 다른 방향으로 흘러간 긴 시간을 차곡히 담아내고 있는 장소이다. 분단의 기억을 직접 품고 살았던 세대는 점차 사라져 가고, 남과 북의 삶은 각자의 사회와 제도, 미디어와 가치관 속에서 서로 다른 현실을 쌓아 올렸다. 오늘날 두 사회가 공유하는 것은 점차 추상적인 영역으로 아득해지고 있다. 이어진 산맥과 강, 동일한 생태계, 흩어진 기억의 잔재, 그리고 어딘가에 서로가 존재한다는 희미한 감각만이 조용히 남아 있을 뿐이다. 역설적으로 DMZ는 세계에서 가장 잘 알려진 경계 중 하나이면서도, 가장 온전히 이해하기 어려운 장소이기도 하다. 인간의 접근은 철저히 제한된 이 공간은 감시 체계와 국가적 서사를 통해서만 간접적으로만 경험된다. 특히 북한의 시선과 그 너머의 풍경은 사실상 다가갈 수 없는 영역이다. 우리가 알고 있다고 믿는 DMZ는 직접적인 경험보다 상상과 추측, 증언과 위성 이미지, 그리고 단편적인 흔적들이 재구성된 풍경에 가깝다. DMZ는 분명 존재하지만 동시에 완전히 존재하지 않는 장소이다. 물리적으로는 실재하지만, 우리의 인식 속에서는 언제나 일부만 드러난 채 남아 있는 공간이다. 이러한 조건은 DMZ를 단순한 경계선이 아니라, 수많은 층위가 중첩된 건축적 풍경으로 읽게 만든다. 긴장과 감시, 선전과

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침묵, 생태와 기억, 지하 인프라와 소리의 흐름이 하나의 장소 안에서 서로 교차한다. 인간의 이동은 오랫동안 차단되어 왔지만, 철새는 계절을 따라 국경을 넘고, 강은 멈추지 않고 흐르며, 지하의 구조와 확성기의 소리, 그리고 서로를 향한 호기심은 여전히 경계를 가로지른다. DMZ는 차단과 연결, 단절과 연속성이 동시에 존재하는 모순적인 공간이며, 바로 이러한 긴장이 이 장소를 특별하게 만든다. 이러한 풍경 속에 일련의 폴리(folly)를 배치함으로써, 건축이 직접적인 접근이 불가능한 장소에서 어떤 역할을 수행할 수 있는지를 탐구했다. 이 구조물들은 정치적 해결이나 화해를 제안하지 않는다. 오히려 불확실성과 거리감, 그리고 상상 위에 놓인 경계 속에서 새로운 인식을 유도하는 공간적 장치로 작동한다. 이들은 사람들에게 국경을 건너도록 요구하지 않는다. 대신 멀리 떨어진 존재를 다시 의식하게 만들고, 시간과 자연, 그리고 기억이 여전히 이 땅을 연결하고 있음을 드러낸다. 폴리들은 하나의 기념비가 아니라, 관계를 드러내는 매개체이며, 분단의 풍경을 다시 읽게 만드는 건축적 장치이다. 건축은 지정학적 갈등을 해결할 수 없다. 그러나 분단 아래에서도 여전히 이어지고 있는 관계들을 드러낼 수는 있다. DMZ에서 건축은 통합이나 화해의 상징이 아니라, 인간과 자연, 그리고 서로 다른 현실이 잠시나마 서로의 존재를 인식하게 만드는 하나의 매개체가 된다. 완전한 연결을 약속하지는 않지만, 오랫동안 보이지 않았던 관계를 다시 바라보게 만드는 작은 계기를 만들어낸다.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is commonly understood as a military boundary separating two opposing political systems. Yet across more than seventy years of division, the DMZ has come to carry meanings that exceed simple political antagonism. It is also a space that reveals the gradual disappearance of the cultural and emotional realities once shared between the South and the North. The generation that holds direct memories of separation is slowly fading, while everyday life, media, infrastructure, and social values have evolved in divergent directions. What the two states share today is increasingly abstract: a geographic terrain, an ecological continuity, fragments of memory, and a faint, persisting awareness of each other’s existence. At the same time, the DMZ remains one of the world’s most recognized boundaries and yet, paradoxically, one of the most difficult to observe or fully comprehend. Human access is restricted, and the space is represented only indirectly — through surveillance systems and state-sanctioned narratives. The perspective and lived experience of North Korea, in particular, remains largely inaccessible. The DMZ is therefore a place constituted not through direct physical observation, but through imagination, conjecture, testimony, satellite imagery, and indirect traces. It exists unmistakably, and yet does not fully exist; physically present, it remains incomplete — psychologically and spatially suspended. This research approaches the DMZ not as a simple line,

but as an architectural territory in which tension, ecology, propaganda, sound, surveillance, subterranean infrastructure, and memory are layered upon one another. While human movement has been strictly prohibited, other systems continue to cross the boundary: the migration of birds, the flow of water, underground networks, the sound of loudspeakers, and a mutual curiosity that persists between the two sides. The DMZ thus operates as a spatial condition in which blockage and connection, exclusion and continuity, coexist simultaneously. This research draws that in a contested territory, architecture cannot resolve geopolitical conflict, but it can surface the relationships that continue to exist beneath division. Within the context of the DMZ, architecture operates not as a symbol of integration or reconciliation, but as a medium through which different presences may — however briefly — become aware of one another and sense the possibility of coexistence.

SOUTH KOREA

Yellow Sea

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

People’s Republic of China

East Sea

Russian Federation

N Republic of Korea

KOREAN PENNINSULA AND THE DMZ

AN INHERITED BORDER

나는 한국전쟁이 끝난 지 수십 년이 지난 뒤에 태어났다. 나의 세대에게 한반도의 분단은 언제나 존재하는 것이었다. 그것은 우리가 직접 경험한 사건도, 특별히 의문을 품었던 대상도 아니었다. 국경은 그저 우리가 물려받은 풍경의 일부였다. 대한민국에서 자라며 북한은 늘 가까이에 있었지만, 동시에 언제나 멀리 있었다. 학교 교과서와 뉴스, 군 복무, 그리고 간헐적으로 찾아오는 정치적 긴장 속에서 북한은 끊임없이 등장했다. 하지만 그것은 이웃 국가로 소개될 뿐, 직접 경험할 수 있는 장소는 아니었다. 국경 너머의 세계는 언제나 접근할 수 없는 곳이었고, 우리는 그곳을 직접 마주하기보다 단편적인 정보와 이미지들을 통해 이해해 왔다. 시간이 흐르면서 내가 알고 있던 북한은 대부분 거리감 속에서 만들어진 인식이었다는 사실을 깨닫게 되었다. 뉴스와 다큐멘터리, 정치적 담론은 북한을 갈등과 폐쇄성, 이념으로 설명했지만, 그 너머에 존재하는 풍경에 대해서는 거의 이야기하지 않았다. 그래서 문득 궁금해졌다. 국경을 넘어 흐르는 강은 어떤 모습일까. 오랫동안 인간의 개입이 사라진 숲은 어떻게 변해왔을까.

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버려진 마을과 군사 시설, 그리고 잊혀진 기반시설에는 어떤 시간이 쌓여 있었을까. 자료를 읽으면 읽을수록, 정치적 서사 아래 또 다른 풍경이 조금씩 모습을 드러내기 시작했다. DMZ는 언제나 분단과 긴장, 위험의 공간으로 설명되었다. 그러나 그 이면에는 시간과 생태, 그리고 인간의 부재가 만들어낸 또 다른 풍경이 존재하고 있었다. 국경은 두 국가의 이동만을 막은 것이 아니라, 한반도 어디에서도 찾아볼 수 없는 독특한 조건을 만들어낸 공간이기도 했다. 그때부터 나의 관심은 정치에서 풍경으로 옮겨갔다. 언젠가 분단이 어떻게 끝날 것인가를 상상하기보다, 분단 속에서도 무엇이 계속 이어져 왔는지를 이해하고 싶었다. 이 프로젝트는 바로 그 호기심에서 시작되었다. 성급한 해답을 찾기 위해서가 아니라, DMZ를 다른 방식으로 읽어보기 위해.

I was born decades after the Korean War had ended. For my generation, the division of the Korean Peninsula has always existed. It was never something we witnessed, nor something we questioned. The border simply formed part of the landscape we inherited. Growing up in South Korea, North Korea was always present, yet always distant. It appeared in school textbooks, television broadcasts, military service, and occasional moments of political tension. It was introduced to us as a neighbouring country, but never as one we could experience. Beyond the border lay a place that remained largely inaccessible, understood through fragments rather than direct encounters. As I grew older, I realised that my understanding of North Korea had been shaped almost entirely by distance. News reports, documentaries and political discussions described a country defined by conflict, secrecy and ideology. Yet they rarely described the landscape itself. I began to wonder what existed beyond these narratives. What did the rivers look like as they crossed the border? How had the forests changed after decades without intensive human occupation? What happened to abandoned villages, military structures and forgotten infrastructures?

INTERCONNECTED LANDSCAPES

The more I read, the more another landscape appeared beneath the political narratives. The DMZ was often presented as a place of division, danger and political tension. Yet the more I read, the more I realised that another landscape existed beneath these descriptions— one shaped by time, ecology and absence. The border had not only prevented movement between two nations; it had also created conditions unlike anywhere else on the Korean Peninsula. My interest therefore shifted away from politics and towards the landscape itself. Rather than asking how the division might one day end, I became interested in understanding what had continued despite it. This research began from that curiosity. Not in search of solutions, but in search of another way of reading the DMZ.

KOREAN PENNINSULA AND THE DMZ

THE UNSPOKEN CURIOSITY

CURIOSITY CROSSES BORDERS LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN.

The first time I became curious about North Korea was when I was in elementary school. One day in class, we were asked to write letters to North Korean children. They were simple letters—short greetings to children who spoke the same language as we did. No one knew whether those letters were ever delivered. Perhaps they stopped somewhere along the way, or perhaps they never crossed the border at all. Still, that was the first time I seriously considered that there might be a child my age living on the other side. As I grew up, I watched televised reunions of separated families. On the screen, people who looked alike and spoke the same language embraced each other and wept. As a child, I could not fully understand why they cried so intensely, or why it had taken so long for them to meet again. I even wondered whether I might have relatives in North Korea without knowing it. I did not. Yet the images stayed with me. My curiosity then was simple. What kind of food did they eat? What kind of work did they do? What was school like for them? It was not politics or ideology that interested me. It was everyday life. But whenever inter-Korean relations intensified, the psychological distance seemed to grow. News of missile launches and military provocations filled the air. Regardless

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of the reasons behind them, North Korea gradually became something more abstract to me—an entity in headlines, a source of tension, a name associated with caution. The simple curiosity of childhood was gradually covered by a sense of distance. Later, when I entered military service, North Korea became something more concrete. It was no longer a vague subject of curiosity but a real presence across the border. I began to understand it less in emotional terms and more in terms of conditions, risks, and realities. It was then that I started to accept North Korea in a more practical, grounded way. Now, from time to time, I watch videos or interviews on YouTube about life in North Korea. Some are stories from defectors or traveling logs from inside North Korea.

A letter sent from a granddaughter in South Korea to grandfather in North Korea1

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I know I can never fully understand the reality from afar. Still, I remain curious. The curiosity is no longer as innocent as it once was. It is mixed with caution and distance. Perhaps my curiosity is not grand or political. It is simply a quiet interest in how people who share the same language and the same peninsula live their lives. It is not something loudly expressed, but neither does it disappear. I will never be able to travel to North Korea because of my nationality. If I were to begin planning a trip to North Korea, the South Korean authorities would intervene. Even if I make it to the other side of the border, upon my return, I could be charged with violating the National Security Act and I would be put in jail for 10 years. Yet I am still curious. A border may divide two countries. But the curiosity is mutual. After watching interviews with North Korean defectors who had gained access to South Korean media, I realised they were just as curious about life on the other side of the border as I was. The border remains, yet so does the instinct to wonder about the people beyond it.

WHAT THE SOIL KNOWS

ALL HUMAN INTERVENTIONS IS JUST ANOTHER LAYER OF THE SOIL

Before the fences, I was walked on constantly. Hooves, boots, carts. Fields were cut into me. Forests were cleared. Rivers were redirected. Then came artillery. Fire. Shock waves that rearranged my layers in seconds. Metal fragments entered and stayed. Some are still here. After that, something unexpected happened. The footsteps stopped. Roots began to return. Seeds that had waited in my upper layers germinated when sunlight reached them again. Grasses spread first. Then shrubs. In the eastern mountains, forests thickened. Near Hyangnobong, the canopy closed over slopes that had once been exposed. At the top of Daeamsan, the high moor— Yongneup—held water like it had for thousands of years, undisturbed. No one planned this recovery. It was simply the result of absence of humans. Roughly 2,930 species of higher plants and vertebrates now live across me here. About thirty percent of the peninsula’s flora and fauna. Forty-four of them are officially endangered: red-crowned cranes, white-naped cranes, black-faced spoonbills, otters, long-tailed gorals. They do not recognize the boundary.

INTERCONNECTED LANDSCAPES

In winter, cranes land on the plains of Cheorwon. Their weight is slight. Their feet press into frozen ground, and when temperatures rise, meltwater carries nutrients downward through my layers. In the midwestern inland region, the Hantan and Imjin Rivers cut through volcanic rock, forming basalt columns and red cliffs. Those cliffs are geological records; I am their sedimentary margin, collecting what breaks away. Each flood rearranges me slightly. Nothing dramatic. Just incremental shifts. Humans see division here. From my perspective, it is continuity. The Baekdudaegan mountain spine intersects with this horizontal band. Geological faults like the Chugaryeong Rift shaped the terrain long before any political border existed. Basalt cooled into columns millions of years ago. Wetlands accumulated peat layer by layer. Time operates at multiple speeds in me. Microbes act within hours. Tree roots over decades. Tectonic shifts over millennia.

“No-man’s Land” suggests emptiness. There is nothing empty about me. Fungal hyphae connect plant roots in dense networks. Burrowing mammals aerate lower layers. Insects fragment leaf litter. Migratory birds transport nutrients across continents and deposit them here in small, measurable amounts. Even the remnants of war—metal shards, unexploded mines— have oxidized and become part of my chemistry. I am not untouched. I am simply less interrupted. From east to west, from mountain forest to estuary mudflat, I remain physically continuous despite political separation. Water flows. Seeds disperse. Animals cross at night or from above. The fence is real. So are the cranes flying over it. I do not choose sides. I do not hold ideology. I register pressure, moisture, temperature, decay, growth. If the fence stays, life will continue adjusting around it. If it disappears, life will adjust again.

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I am soil. Layered, altered, inhabited. Not owned.

NEITHER OPEN NOR CLOSED

NEITHER FULLY ACCESSIBLE, NOR COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE.

The Demilitarized Zone contains a range of architectural and infrastructural projects that reflect different approaches to the Korean division. Some were built to support political or economic cooperation, while others are remnants of the peninsula before its separation. Today, these sites exist in different conditions: some remain active but heavily controlled, others have been abandoned or dismantled, and many have become inaccessible. Examining these projects reveals how architecture within the DMZ is shaped by changing political conditions rather than by its intended spatial or urban function.

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The architecture of politics The Panmunjom Joint Security Area, located within the Korean Demilitarized Zone, represents one of the most extreme cases of architecture operating within political tension. Established following the Korean War Armistice Agreement, it was not conceived as a conventional border, but as a site of negotiation—a space where two opposing systems could encounter one another without reconciliation. Architecturally, Panmunjom is minimal and deliberately restrained. The central conference buildings—simple, symmetrical, and devoid of overt symbolism—straddle the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), transforming an abstract geopolitical boundary into a spatial condition. Inside, the border is reduced to a thin line across a table: physically negligible, yet politically absolute. Panmunjom is therefore not a composition of objects, but a constructed condition. Its architecture does not resolve conflict; it stabilizes it, creating a framework in which tension can be continuously managed. Panmunjom challenges the conventional architectural binary of open versus closed. Formally, the site appears open: there are no dominant walls within the Joint Security Area, and the central space remains visually accessible. The conference rooms can be entered, and under controlled circumstances, individuals may approach—or symbolically cross—the border. Yet this openness is strictly regulated. Movement is choreographed, access is conditional, and behavior is

governed by protocol. Control is not enforced through enclosure, but through visibility and surveillance. The space is open in form but closed in operation. Crucially, Panmunjom does not shift between these states. It does not open or close; it sustains both simultaneously. Openness enables contact, while closure maintains separation. Each depends on the other. Panmunjom demonstrates that architecture can function as a form of mediation, shaping conditions rather than outcomes. It reveals that the most critical architectural task may not be to transform space, but to hold it open—precisely, carefully, and without resolution.

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Architecture for Economic Mediation If the architecture of military confrontation seeks to enforce separation, the architecture of economic mediation attempts to achieve the opposite. Rather than using walls, checkpoints, and surveillance to regulate the border, it employs infrastructure, tourism, and industry as spatial mechanisms through which cooperation might gradually emerge. In the Korean peninsula, architecture became the physical framework for an economic hypothesis: that shared prosperity could precede political reconciliation. Two of the most ambitious experiments in this direction were the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region and the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Although fundamentally different in programme— one organised around leisure, the other around production— both relied on the same architectural premise. They created carefully controlled environments where North and South Koreans could temporarily coexist without dissolving the political boundary that separated them. The Mount Kumgang Tourist Region represented the first large-scale architectural attempt to transform the border into a destination rather than an obstacle. Located on North Korean territory, the UNESCO World Heritage landscape had remained inaccessible to South Koreans since the division of the peninsula. Through a bilateral agreement, a dedicated tourist enclave was established, allowing visitors from the South to enter a highly regulated territory equipped with hotels, golf courses, ski facilities, transport infrastructure, and visitor services.

The project was financed and constructed by South Korea while generating revenue for North Korea through tourism. Spatially, however, the resort remained an enclave rather than an integrated city. Every movement, route, and interaction was carefully orchestrated, limiting opportunities for spontaneous encounters between visitors and local communities. The architecture succeeded in creating a functioning tourist environment, yet failed to establish an urban condition capable of existing independently of political negotiations. As diplomatic relations deteriorated, tourism was repeatedly suspended until the complex was eventually dismantled and officially abandoned. The architecture disappeared almost as quickly as it had emerged because its existence depended entirely upon political permission. The Kaesong Industrial Complex translated the same principles into the language of manufacturing. Instead of tourists, it brought together workers; instead of hotels, it produced factories, warehouses, roads, and utilities. South Korea supplied capital, infrastructure, electricity, and industrial expertise, while North Korea provided labour. Economically, the arrangement created mutual dependency: one side gained affordable production, the other received employment and foreign income. Yet Kaesong was conceived as more than an industrial park. Its architecture attempted to normalise everyday coexistence. Shared cafeterias, circulation spaces, and workplaces were intended to produce routine encounters between citizens of the two states, suggesting that reconciliation could begin not

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through political declarations but through ordinary daily life. The factory became a diplomatic space. This ambition ultimately proved unsustainable. Political crises repeatedly interrupted production before operations ceased entirely in 2016 following North Korea’s missile programme. Subsequent concerns that industrial revenues could indirectly support military development undermined the economic logic that had justified the project. The demolition of the interKorean liaison office in Kaesong in 2020 further demonstrated how quickly architecture could be transformed from an instrument of cooperation into a symbol of political hostility. Both Mount Kumgang and Kaesong reveal the limitations of architecture when it is expected to perform diplomacy. Although they introduced new urban typologies into the border landscape, neither was allowed to develop the complexity characteristic of ordinary cities. Their programmes, circulation, and occupation remained carefully prescribed, leaving little room for informal appropriation or social evolution. Like the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, they were spaces of choreography rather than spontaneity. These projects demonstrate that architecture alone cannot produce reconciliation when political sovereignty continues to define every aspect of spatial occupation. Their value came to be measured through economic performance and diplomatic utility rather than through their ability to create durable public life. As political relations deteriorated, the architecture lost its purpose and became expendable. Instead of mediating between two societies, it remained suspended between two governments.

The layers of the past While new architectural interventions have attempted to transform the Demilitarized Zone into a space of mediation, another layer of architecture lies beneath them: the physical remains of a unified Korea. Roads, railway lines, bridges, villages, and historic settlements continue to exist as fragments interrupted by the border, forming a landscape where infrastructure no longer connects and architecture no longer functions. The division of the peninsula did not simply create new boundaries; it froze an existing territorial network. Railways terminate abruptly at military fences, bridges stop mid-span, roads disappear into restricted territory, and settlements that once belonged to continuous regional systems were divided into separate political realities. These remnants reveal that the DMZ is not an empty landscape but an archive of interrupted urbanisation. The same condition extends to archaeological heritage. Within the Demilitarized Zone lies the site of Gung-Ye Castle Town, whose remains predate the Korean War by centuries. Although the settlement itself disappeared long before the twentieth century, its archaeological significance has remained inaccessible since the establishment of the border. Periodically, proposals have emerged to excavate the site as a shared historical project representing the common cultural origins of both Koreas. Yet, like many initiatives founded on shared identity rather than political ideology, these ambitions

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have remained unrealised. The abandoned infrastructures and archaeological landscapes of the DMZ therefore function as architectural ghosts. They reveal a territory where buildings and infrastructure survive physically while their original relationships have disappeared. Their significance lies not in their material condition alone but in the absence of the social, political, and territorial networks that once gave them meaning.

Panmunjom2 View towards North Korean side.

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Haegeumgang floating hotel, Kumgang resort3 The 90-metre floating structure has travelled over 13,000 km to arrive in North Korea.

One of the remains of Gung-Ye Castle Town4 It was lost during Japanese colonization.

THE BORDER OF SOUND

A BORDER EXTENDS FARTHER THAN THE FENCE ITSELF.

The Demilitarized Zone is commonly understood as a 4-kilometre-wide strip of land separating North and South Korea. In reality, however, the border extends far beyond its physical limits. Through networks of military loudspeakers, it becomes an acoustic territory that can reach up to 24 kilometres into the neighbouring country, depending on the landscape and weather conditions. The DMZ is therefore not only a physical boundary but sometimes also a sonic one. For decades, both Koreas have used loudspeakers as tools of psychological warfare. Installed along the border and directed towards military bases and nearby settlements, they broadcast propaganda day and night. Unlike fences or walls, sound ignores political boundaries. It travels across rivers, fields, and mountains, reaching places where physical infrastructure cannot. In doing so, it creates an invisible layer of the border that overlaps the landscape. The reach of these broadcasts changes throughout the day. During daylight, surrounding activity and environmental noise reduce the distance that sound can travel. At night, when the landscape becomes quieter, the broadcasts can be heard more than 20 kilometres from their source. The effective border therefore expands and contracts over time, creating a territory that is defined by sound rather than by a fence. Although both countries operate loudspeaker systems, their strategies are different. North Korea’s speakers are generally less powerful and are mainly used to interfere with broadcasts from the South. South Korea operates more advanced systems

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capable of transmitting much further. Their broadcasts combine music, news, and information about everyday life in South Korea, aiming to expose North Korean soldiers and nearby residents to alternative political and cultural perspectives. Rather than occupying territory physically, these broadcasts attempt to influence it ideologically. The effects of this acoustic landscape are also felt by civilians living nearby. On the South Korean side, the village of Dangsanri on Ganghwa Island became an unintended participant in this conflict when reciprocal broadcasts intensified in 2024. Residents described hearing ghostly sounds, animal cries, and distorted mechanical noises throughout the day and night. Sound levels reportedly reached around 95 decibels—similar to a subway train entering a station—causing sleep deprivation and disrupting daily life. For those living near the DMZ, the border is experienced not only through military infrastructure but also through constant sound. Unlike conventional architecture, these interventions leave no permanent physical structure. Their presence depends on technology, weather, and political circumstances rather than on construction. Yet they have a real impact on how space is experienced. They influence when people sleep, whether they spend time outdoors, and how they perceive their surroundings. Over time, the broadcasts become part of the daily rhythm of life along the border. Some residents have even described feeling uneasy when the loudspeakers suddenly fall silent. The absence of sound, rather than providing relief, creates uncertainty, as silence may signal a change in military

activity or political relations. In this way, both sound and its absence become part of the lived experience of the border. North Korean defectors also suggest that the broadcasts were not entirely ineffective. Because soldiers could compare what they heard with what they could see across the border—roads, vehicles, buildings, and economic activity—the messages often appeared credible. In contrast, North Korean broadcasts increasingly relied on noise rather than persuasion, reflecting their limited influence on South Korean audiences. The loudspeaker systems demonstrate that the Korean border cannot be understood only through its physical infrastructure. Alongside fences, guard posts, and surveillance towers exists an invisible architecture made of sound. It has no walls or foundations, yet it reshapes the experience of the landscape and extends the presence of the border far beyond the DMZ itself. More importantly, it alters the way people inhabit the border. The acoustic environment becomes part of everyday life, embedding political conflict into ordinary routines. Sound therefore becomes another architectural layer of the divided peninsula—one that is temporary, constantly changing, and capable of occupying space without ever physically enclosing it.

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This photo shows a general view of a North Korean giant loudspeaker in Paju on June 12, 20255

A SUPPOSED SUBTERRANEAN

THE EYE SEES A PEACEFUL LANDSCAPE. MACHINES SILENTLY CARVE THE STONE UNDER

From the surface, the landscape appears quiet. Mountains overlap in long ridges. Forests cover the slopes. Rivers cut narrow valleys through the terrain. From above, it resembles many other mountainous regions of the Korean peninsula. Yet some researchers believe another layer exists beneath it. Not a single tunnel. Not a single bunker. But a network.

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After the Korean War, North Korea began building extensively underground. The experience of heavy aerial bombardment had demonstrated how vulnerable surface infrastructure could be. Rock and soil became a form of protection. Mountains were drilled and hollowed. Factories moved inside hillsides. Aircraft shelters were carved into mountain slopes. Storage facilities disappeared beneath layers of rock. In many places, the landscape itself became architecture. Satellite imagery and military analyses have identified thousands of underground facilities across North Korea, including factories, aircraft shelters, storage complexes, and tunnel systems excavated into mountainous terrain. When smaller bunkers, artillery shelters, and protected storage areas are included, estimates rise to over 10,000 undergroundrelated sites. Individually, each entrance appears insignificant. A dark opening in a hillside. A road disappearing into a mountain. A ventilation shaft emerging through vegetation. But when these points are mapped together, they begin to suggest something larger. A distributed underground system embedded within the terrain. Above ground, the border appears as a narrow band. Below ground, space operates differently. Tunnels and underground facilities do not follow political lines. They follow geology. Granite ridges provide structural stability. Basalt layers allow excavation.

Mountain mass offers protection from aerial observation. In this sense, the subterranean landscape is shaped more by rock than by ideology. The existence of infiltration tunnels beneath the border has already been confirmed. Since the 1970s, four tunnels dug from North Korea toward the South have been discovered beneath the Demilitarized Zone. Some are two metres wide and more than two metres high, large enough for soldiers to move through quickly. Estimates suggested that thousands of troops per hour could pass through them. These tunnels extend several kilometres southward beneath the border. They reveal that the underground is not only a place of shelter but also a space of movement. If the known tunnels are only a small fraction of the system, the scale becomes difficult to visualize. Hundreds of entrances. Thousands of underground spaces. Distributed across a mountainous territory. Not concentrated like a conventional city, but scattered like geological cavities. Yet when considered together, they resemble something urban in character. A network of connected functions: production, storage, and transportation. A hidden infrastructure operating beneath the visible landscape. Of course, it is not a city in the traditional sense. There are no streets, no squares, no public facades. The architecture is

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almost entirely concealed. Rock becomes wall. Mountain becomes roof. Soil becomes insulation. Instead of constructing buildings on the land, the land itself becomes the building. For someone standing near the border, this hidden layer remains impossible to perceive. From the surface, the Demilitarized Zone appears empty. A strip of land approximately 250 kilometres long and four kilometres wide where human presence is limited. Yet the absence above ground does not necessarily mean emptiness below. The underground is invisible but potentially extensive. This possibility transforms the way the border can be understood spatially. We often imagine borders as lines drawn across maps. But underground space adds depth to that line. A boundary becomes a volume. Above the surface, cranes migrate across the landscape without recognizing political divisions. Below the surface, tunnels may move through rock in equally indifferent ways. Both systems ignore the strict geometry of borders.

The supposed subterranean city may therefore exist more in imagination than in direct observation. It is constructed through fragments: satellite images, engineering traces, military reports, speculation. Each fragment suggests a piece of a larger spatial condition that remains mostly hidden. Architecture usually concerns what can be seen. Walls, facades, roofs. But some forms of architecture operate primarily through concealment. Camouflage. Burial. Absence. Their presence is understood only through indirect evidence. A road ending at rock. A shadow beneath a mountain ridge. A ventilation shaft emerging from the forest. If such an underground network truly exists, it represents another way of organizing space. Not through visibility. But through protection. Not through openness. But through depth.

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From the perspective of the border landscape, this hidden layer adds another dimension to an already complex territory. Above ground lies a landscape where human activity has been restricted for decades. Wildlife now occupies the space between the two countries. Below ground may lie another form of occupation. Two territories sharing the same geography. One ecological. One infrastructural. Both largely unseen. The border is often described as a line. But when we begin to imagine what may exist beneath it, that line becomes thicker. Layered. Three-dimensional. A space where visible and invisible architectures coexist.

THE ORDINARY BORDER

THE EXTRAORDINARY GRADUALLY BECOMES ORDINARY. OBSERVATION TURNS INTO HABIT.

The watchtowers stare at one another across a border. On the Northern side, soldiers lift binoculars toward the South and catch fragments of another century: modern helicopters circling in the sky, excavators carving new roads, lights burning late in distant towers. Modern life arrives to them in pieces — the flash of machinery, the ease in a young soldier’s posture, a civilian truck delivering goods to a checkpoint. Through glass, abundance looks casual. From the South, the view North is stranger. Near the border stand immaculate villages with high-rise apartments and empty streets, cities built to be seen rather than lived in. At night, some windows glow without silhouettes ever crossing them. A facade with no footsteps. Only some small simple homes in the mountains with little farms next to them. People working hard in the fields. But the binoculars always drift back to human details. Southern guards sometimes watch North Korean soldiers being struck by their superiors, see exhausted men unloading crates in silence, study conversations through lip movements because every word across the border matters. Hidden microphones listen through the mountains while analysts build entire stories from gestures, posture, hesitation. And still, neither side truly sees the other. The landscape reveals almost nothing: barren hills, wire fences, gray rivers, concrete posts. No skyline explains a country. No propaganda speaker explains a life. Only indirect clues escape. The soldiers remain there, day after day, searching the

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opposite horizon not only for threats, but for evidence of ordinary life — proof that beyond the wire, people live differently, suffer differently, hope differently. Time moves strangely at the DMZ. The days are so repetitive that even the smallest change in the landscape becomes an event. A patch of grass turns yellow. Rain gathers in the tire tracks near the fence. Snow settles unevenly on the guard rails and then disappears a few days later. Spring arrives almost invisibly, first as softer mud, then as thin green weeds climbing through mine warning signs. The soldiers notice everything because there is almost nothing else to notice. They spend hours looking through binoculars at the same hills, the same trees, the same empty strip of land dividing the peninsula. They take notes on movements so minor they resemble observations made on weather rather than military activity: one additional truck near a checkpoint, fresh footprints beside a barrier, a light turning on earlier than usual in a distant guard post. Most days, nothing happens.

And still they watch. The act of observation becomes the entire rhythm of life there. Men on both sides stare at each other across valleys and concrete lines, documenting a situation that changes so slowly it feels like watching paint dry on a wall. Time stretches. Afternoons become enormous. Even silence begins to feel repetitive. The border itself seems suspended outside ordinary history. Seasons pass over it more visibly than politics do. Summer thickens the vegetation until watch posts almost disappear behind leaves. Winter strips everything bare again, exposing fences, patrol roads, and footprints frozen into snow. Fog drifts through in the mornings and briefly erases both sides from each other’s sight, as if the peninsula has vanished entirely. Yet the watching never stops. Because in a place where almost nothing changes, even the smallest detail starts to feel meaningful.

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Two watchtowers on both sides of the border6

FROM OBSERVATION TO INTERVENTION

여러 관찰을 통해 DMZ는 각기 다른 모습으로 드러났다. 지도 위의 한 줄. 인간이 비워낸 풍경. 인간의 부재가 만들어낸 서식지. 열려 있으면서도 닫혀 있는 공간. 국경을 넘나드는 소리. 지하에 숨겨진 또 다른 세계. 각각의 관찰은 서로 다른 경계를 보여주었다. 그 어느 하나만으로는 DMZ를 설명할 수 없었다. 그러나 이들을 함께 바라보았을 때, 분리라는 하나의 개념만으로는 이해할 수 없는 풍경이 서서히 모습을 드러내기 시작했다. 철책은 분명 존재한다. 군사 시설도 존재한다. 정치적 분단도 존재한다. 그러나 그 사이를 여전히 가로지르는 것들 역시 존재한다. 물은 경계를 넘어 흐른다. 새는 그 위를 날아간다. 소리는 국경 너머까지 퍼져나간다. 땅굴은 지하에서 이어진다. 그리고 기억은 양쪽에 남아 있다. 직접 마주할 수 없는 곳에서도, 서로를 향한 호기심은 계속된다.

DMZ는 단순히 관계가 끝난 장소가 아니다. 관계가 더 이상 쉽게 보이지 않게 된 장소이다. 이 지점에서 건축에 대한 질문도 달라진다. DMZ는 비어 있는 땅이 아니다. 언젠가 채워지기를 기다리는 풍경도 아니다. 그곳은 이미 충분히 채워져 있다. 역사로. 군사의 흔적으로. 생태의 과정으로. 불확실성으로. 그리고 간접적으로만 감각할 수 있는 수많은 존재들로. 이 풍경에 개입하는 건축은 무엇보다 먼저, 이미 존재하고 있는 조건 속으로 들어간다는 사실을 인식해야 한다. 건축은 해답으로 도착할 수 없다. 국경을 지울 수도 없다. 분단을 만들어낸 정치적 갈등을 해결할 수도 없다. 화해를 약속할 수도 없다. 건축에는 그러한 권한도, 능력도 없다. 어쩌면 이곳에서 건축의 역할은 그것이 아닐지도 모른다.

대신 건축은 조금 더 작고, 조용한 방식으로 존재할 수 있다. 이미 존재하는 것들을 다시 바라보게 만들고, 멈춰 있는 것처럼 보이는 풍경 속에서 시간의 흐름을 드러내며, 자연의 변화를 통제하지 않은 채 감각하게 하고, 물리적으로 떨어져 있는 사람들 사이에 잠시나마 하나의 기준점을 만들어낼 수 있다. 정치적 현실을 벗어나, 풍경을 바라보는 방식을 조금은 달라지게 만들 수 있다. 따라서 이 프로젝트가 제안하는 것은 하나의 형태가 아니라 하나의 태도이다. 건축은 이 풍경을 지배해서는 안 된다. 풍경에 귀 기울여야 한다. 거리를 없애려 하기보다, 그 거리를 있는 그대로 받아들여야 한다. 모든 것을 이해한다고 말하기보다, 불확실성을 인정해야 한다. 그리고 날씨와 생태, 풍화와 인간의 해석이 계속해서 건축을 변화시킬 수 있도록 남겨두어야 한다. 무엇보다 건축은 이미 관계가 존재하는 곳에서 시작해야 한다. 땅속에 오래된 기억이 남아 있는 곳. 허락을 구하지 않고 물이 흐르는 곳. 빛이 남과 북 모두에 닿는 곳. 국경을 바라보며 여전히 일상이 이어지는 곳. 이곳들은 비어 있는 장소가 아니다.

긴장이 머무는 지점이며, 서로 다른 세계가 겹쳐지는 지점이고, 국경이 하나의 선이 아니라 두꺼운 영역으로 느껴지는 장소이다. 따라서 건축의 개입은 관찰에서 시작해야만 한다. 개입하기 전에 먼저 바라보아야 한다. 무엇이 움직이는지. 무엇이 남아 있는지. 무엇이 사라지는지. 무엇이 다시 돌아오는지. 그 이후에야 비로소 건축이 들어설 수 있다. 풍경 위에 답을 덧씌우기 위해서가 아니라, 그 풍경 안에 또 하나의 존재로 머물기 위해. 풍경을 바라보는 방식을 조금은 바꾸고, 동시에 풍경에 의해 스스로도 변화할 수 있는 존재로. 이 프로젝트는 DMZ를 다른 방식으로 읽을 수 있는가라는 질문에서 시작했다. 그리고 하나의 설계안을 제시하지 않은 채 끝난다. 대신, 건축이 시작될 수 있는 조건들을 남긴다. 관찰은 여기서 끝난다. 그럼에도 풍경은 계속된다.

다음 권에서, 건축은 그 풍경의 이야기에 들어간다.

Throughout these observations, the DMZ has appeared in many different forms. A line on a map. A landscape emptied of people. A habitat shaped by absence. A room that is both open and closed. A territory extended by sound. A hidden world beneath the ground. Each reading revealed a different border. None of them was complete. Together, however, they described a landscape that cannot be understood through separation alone. The fences are real. The military infrastructure is real. The political division is real. But so are the systems that continue to move through them. Water crosses the boundary. Birds fly above it. Sound travels beyond it. Geological formations continue beneath it. Memory remains on both sides. Curiosity also persists, even where direct contact is impossible. The DMZ is therefore not simply a place where relationships have ended.

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It is a place where some relationships have become difficult to see. This changes the question of architecture. The DMZ is not an empty landscape waiting to be occupied. It is already full. Full of histories. Full of military traces. Full of ecological processes. Full of uncertainty. Full of things that can be sensed only indirectly. Any architectural intervention within this landscape must begin by recognising that it is entering a condition that already exists. It cannot arrive as an answer. It cannot erase the border. It cannot resolve the political conflict that created it. It cannot promise reconciliation. Architecture has neither the authority nor the ability to do these things. Perhaps that is not its role here. Perhaps architecture can operate in a smaller and quieter way. It can draw attention to what is already present. It can reveal the movement of time in a place that is often imagined as frozen. It can make natural processes visible without attempting to control them. It can create moments of reference between people who remain physically separated. It can allow a landscape to be perceived differently, without claiming to transform its political reality.

The research thus begins to suggest not an object, but a position. Architecture should not dominate this landscape. It should remain attentive to it. It should work with distance rather than trying to overcome it. It should acknowledge uncertainty rather than pretending to know the territory completely. It should allow weather, ecology, decay and human interpretation to continue shaping it after construction has ended. Most importantly, it should begin where existing relationships already occur. Where the ground contains hidden histories. Where water moves without permission. Where light reaches both sides. Where everyday life continues within sight of the border. These are not empty locations. They are points of tension. They are points of overlap. They are places where the border becomes thicker than a line. The act of intervention therefore begins with observation. To notice what moves. What remains. What disappears. What returns. Only then can architecture enter. Not as a solution imposed upon the landscape, but as another presence within it.

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Something that may alter how the landscape is seen. Something that may be changed by the landscape in return. This volume began by asking how the DMZ might be understood differently. It ends without a design. Instead, it identifies the conditions from which design may begin. The observations end here. The landscape remains. In the following volume, architecture enters its stories.

EARLY SKETCHES

References

Kim, Suk-Young. DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship along the Korean Border. Columbia University Press, 2014. Natural Environment of the DMZ https://dmz.gg.go.kr/contents/contents.do?ciIdx=5&menuId=12

Associated Press. (2025, June 11). South Korea halts propaganda broadcasts along border with rival North in a move to ease tensions. https://apnews.com/article/2ba545996b3daf1a9f81e23685792c11

North Korean loudspeaker near the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea. Published in NPR, article by Se Eun Gong, 18 June 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/18/g-s1-73286/battle-of-sounds-interkorean-border United Nations Command. (1953). Korean Armistice Agreement. https://www.unc.mil/About/History/1953-Korean-Armistice-Agreement/

Pabian, Frank. Underground Areas Identified at the Yongbyon Nuclear Facility: Purpose Unknown. 38 North, 19 September 2019. https://www.38North.org/2019/09/yongbyon091919/

Image Sources

Figure 1. 북쪽 큰할아버지에게 보내는 남쪽 손녀의 편지. Photograph by Kim Ju-seong. Yonhap News Agency, 24 August 2018. https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20180824150300014 Figure 2. Panmunjom (판문점). Photograph by David Eerdmans. Wikipedia (Korean). https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/판문점 Figure 3. Floating Hotel Haegumgang, Mount Kumgang, North Korea. Photograph by Eric Lafforgue, 2010. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics/5117149686 Figure 4. Taebong Fortress, Cheorwon (태봉국 철원성). Namu Wiki. https://namu.wiki/w/태봉국%20철원성 Figure 5. North Korean loudspeaker near the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea. Photograph by Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images. Published in NPR, article by Se Eun Gong, 18 June 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/18/g-s1-73286/battle-of-sounds-interkorean-border Figure 6. 남북 DMZ 감시초소 10개 내외 시범적 철수키로. Photograph by 박영규. Korea Daily Times. https://koreadailytimes.com/social/24420

Yangwook Kang INTERCONNECTED LANDSCAPES Written by: Yangwook Kang Design: Yangwook Kang Supervision: Jeroen van Mechelen Vibeke Gieskes Machiel Spaan Proofreading: Kornelija Trocko-Kang Ellen Vos

Email: yangwook.kang@gmail.com T +31 (0)6 11745470

THE UNSPOKEN CURIOSITY

WHAT THE SOIL KNOWS

NEITHER OPEN NOR CLOSE

THE BORDER OF SOUND

A SUPPOSED SUBTERRANEAN

THE ORDINARY BORDER

FROM OBSERVATION TO INTERVENTION

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ABSTRACT