Architecture-as-a-Product (2025)
<Pyro-Politics Realism>, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
Commissioned Artist
Commissioned Artist
This work originates from the great architect Álvaro Siza’s unfinished project <A Gallery for Two Picassos> and expands it into an architectural experiment that realizes and develops its design principles as an algorithmic product. It particularly draws attention to the fact that, although the gallery was conceived for Madrid but never realized, it was eventually materialized 25 years later in Changpyeong, Korea, under the name Soyohun, at one-quarter of its intended scale.
Álvaro Siza is a pioneer of what may be termed “architectural productization.” What if Soyohun, generated through an algorithm embodying Siza’s architectural principles, were built not in Changpyeong but on Busan’s Gwangalli Beach, atop Seoul’s Namsan, or in Tokyo, Athens, Beijing, Nuuk, Paris, Cairo, Nairobi, or Melbourne? Repetition is not replication but the diffusion of excellence.
Within its algorithmized system, Soyohun allows customized mass production through adjustments of various parameters such as width, height, length, and the angles of two axes. By integrating generative design, BIM, and GIS, the entire process—from adaptation to topography, selection of details, and calculation of construction costs—is informatized and automated, presenting the future possibility of producing and distributing architecture as an algorithmic product. This algorithmic product is completed through the definition of initial design principles, control of key variables, and an optimization process that reflects the architect’s aesthetic preferences, thereby transforming a multidimensional state space into a curated set of limited choices shaped by the architect’s intent.
The installation <The Field of Supply and Demand> visualizes this discussion. On a 1.2m × 1.2m plane, seven carved-out shapes of buildings symbolize the “demand” arising from the absence of architectural products, while 600 1:1000 scale models of Soyohun arranged on a 20 × 30 grid represent the corresponding “supply.” Each model varies in width, orientation, angle, and depth according to its positional coordinates (real estate value) and external forces (intensity of demand). Each edition includes information such as estimated construction costs, formwork area, concrete volume, total floor area, axis angles, and dimensions. This installation serves as a simulation device for algorithmic products operating within the “field of supply and demand.”
<Exhibition @HH_Gallery>
Left: A Gallery for Two Picassos by Álvaro Siza (1992)
Right: Soyoheon Art Pavilion by Álvaro Siza + Carlos Castanheira (2017)
Right: Soyoheon Art Pavilion by Álvaro Siza + Carlos Castanheira (2017)
In the late 1990s, the great architect Álvaro Siza conceived an intriguing project in Madrid entitled A Gallery for Two Picassos. It was an architectural space designed to exhibit two works by another master painter, Pablo Picasso: The Pregnant Woman and Guernica. Although the project was never realized, twenty-five years later, in 2017, it was finally brought to life at the request of a client in Korea. Collaborating with Carlos Castanheira Architects, Siza completed a version reduced to about one-quarter of the Madrid plan under the name Soyoheon. Situated in Changpyeong, Jeollanam-do, this building—originally conceived for Madrid—was transformed to adapt to the Korean landscape. Architecture often manipulates its surrounding scenery for its own sake.
A Gallery for Two Picassos takes the form of a single axis splitting into two: one straight, the other curved. One path was planned to lead to sculpture symbolizing life, while the other led to painting symbolizing death. Between the two routes lies a small corridor that connects the spaces, naturally forming a courtyard in between. Yet in Soyoheon, instead of Picasso’s works, Siza’s own sculptures on the themes of life and death were installed. Álvaro Siza is a pioneer of the “productization of architecture.” What if Soyoheon were built not in Changpyeong but on Busan’s Gwangalli Beach, atop Seoul’s Namsan, or in Tokyo, Athens, Beijing, Nuuk, Paris, Cairo, Nairobi, or Melbourne? Would the law of diminishing marginal utility dictate that, once there are two great buildings, visitors’ sense of awe would sharply diminish? No. The more great architecture there is, the better. The world still cries out for a greater abundance of excellent architecture.
Architecture-as-a-Product
Consider Jeff Koons. His iconic Balloon Dog has been sold in countless editions of varying colors and sizes, yet its artistic and market value has not been diminished in the slightest. What if this principle were applied to Álvaro Siza’s architecture? What if his designs could be authenticated and rights guaranteed through blockchain NFTs or verification marks like Instagram’s blue check? Of course, such a system would presuppose a fee structure to protect Siza’s intellectual property. The Picasso Gallery—or rather, Soyoheon—could become the Apple Store, the McDonald’s, or the Confucius Shrine of architecture. The repetition of an idea is not replication but the diffusion of excellence. And this, in turn, could become a strategy for the survival of architecture as a medium today.
Algorithmic Álvaro Siza for Sale
Soyoheon, realized through an algorithm embodying Álvaro Siza’s architectural essence, is not a mere copy-and-paste of a building. It is an “algorithmic product”: a system that takes the master’s design principles as its core and adapts them to different sites and conditions. This product expands through digitized design logic, implemented not as a physical replica but through the translation and application of design principles. Within an algorithmic system, Soyoheon can be mass-customized by adjusting variables such as width, length, height, and the angles of its two axes. Construction costs can also be estimated based on data such as formwork area and concrete volume. In this way, the informatization of architecture, through the integration of generative design, BIM, and GIS, enables the entire process—from adaptation to terrain, to detail selection, to quantity take-off—thus heralding a new era of algorithmic products.
In the production of algorithmic products, Álvaro Siza may intervene in three key stages: first, the initial design stage where the concept and structure of the product are defined; second, the specification and control of major variables; and third, the process of preferential optimization, in which the architect’s aesthetic preferences are introduced through human-in-the-loop intervention. Through this process, the infinite state space of possibilities—once uncontrollable—is transformed into a curated and limited field of options shaped by the architect’s aesthetic intent.
Fields of Supply and Demand
The architectural-algorithmic product is composed as a virtual plane representing “supply and demand.” On a 1.2m × 1.2m surface lie seven primal forms, carved as voids symbolizing the demand arising from the absence of architectural products such as Soyoheon. Upon this plane, 600 models of Soyoheon at a 1:1000 scale are supplied according to a 20 × 30 coordinate grid. Each building varies in the angle, orientation, width, and depth of its two arms, determined by its real estate value (location coordinates) and external forces (demand pressure). Each edition is accompanied by information such as its number, Cost Estimate (100M KRW), Formwork Area (㎡), Concrete Volume (m³), Floor Area (m²), Degree (Axis 1 & 2), Width (m), Height (m), and Length.