Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Citizenship and the Good Life
- 2 Spaces of the Prudent Self
- 3 The Biopolitics of Sexuality and the Hypothesis of an Erotic Art: Foucault and Psychoanalysis
- 4 Elective Spaces: Creating Space to Care
- 5 Interpreting Dao (道) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘Be-wëgen’
- 6 Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West
- 7 A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities
- 8 Urban Acupuncture: Care and Ideology in the Writing of the City in Eleventh-Century China
- 9 The Value and Meaning of Temporality and its Relationship to Identity in Kunming City, China
- 10 Junzi (君子), the Confucian Concept of the ‘Gentleman’, and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning
- 11 Home Within Movement: The Japanese Concept of Ma (間): Sensing Space-time Intensity in Aesthetics of Movement
- 12 The Concept of ‘Home’: The Javanese Creative Interpretation of Omah Bhetari Sri: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity
- Afterword
- Index
- Publications / Asian Cities
10 - Junzi (君子), the Confucian Concept of the ‘Gentleman’, and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Citizenship and the Good Life
- 2 Spaces of the Prudent Self
- 3 The Biopolitics of Sexuality and the Hypothesis of an Erotic Art: Foucault and Psychoanalysis
- 4 Elective Spaces: Creating Space to Care
- 5 Interpreting Dao (道) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘Be-wëgen’
- 6 Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West
- 7 A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities
- 8 Urban Acupuncture: Care and Ideology in the Writing of the City in Eleventh-Century China
- 9 The Value and Meaning of Temporality and its Relationship to Identity in Kunming City, China
- 10 Junzi (君子), the Confucian Concept of the ‘Gentleman’, and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning
- 11 Home Within Movement: The Japanese Concept of Ma (間): Sensing Space-time Intensity in Aesthetics of Movement
- 12 The Concept of ‘Home’: The Javanese Creative Interpretation of Omah Bhetari Sri: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity
- Afterword
- Index
- Publications / Asian Cities
Summary
Abstract
The crowded, lively, and diverse cities of East Asia are a fascinating experience for the Western visitor. What some perceive as chaotic is actually the result of a set of values derived from Confucian culture that are reflected in the organization of the city. While Western philosophy believes in the dialectic idea that truth can be found through reason and ultimately leads to the resolution of contradictions, Eastern philosophy follows an aesthetic notion of order, which uses contradictions as a means of understanding the relationships among objects and events. Confucian aesthetics value harmony among differences more than rationality and uniformity, and it is this notion that seems to be reflected in the diverse and lively urban centres of East Asia. In this chapter, the relation between philosophical ideals and urban expression is explored through the investigation of a series of developmental steps in the history of Seoul. Starting with the junzi (君子, ‘gentleman’), the exemplary person in Confucian thought, it becomes clear that moral values, institutional frameworks, and economic processes have produced a certain type of specifically East Asian urbanism. The Park regime in the 1960s, in its push for economic development, radically embraced Western values; this choice has also had consequences for the planning, form, and land-use diversity of the modern Korean city. The investigation into the application of Western concepts in practice in Korea reveals that certain Confucian values remain present in modern Korea, in hybridization with the imported Western typologies.
Keywords: land use, urban planning, apartment complexes, Confucius, junzi (君子, ‘gentleman’)
Introduction
Visitors from the West are often impressed with the dense, heterogeneous, and vibrant cities in East Asia. What presents itself as a chaotic jumble of activities is the result of an interplay of governance, institutional frameworks, and economic forces rooted in Confucian culture. It is the interplay of these forces that unveils its charm to the Western visitor through the experience of East Asian cities. Fundamental differences in Eastern and Western philosophy in, for example, the notions of order (aesthetic vs. rational), the concept of identity (collectivist vs. individualist), or the composition of the social structure, leave their mark on the urban order of cities, creating exciting and diverse cities in East Asia.
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- Information
- Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the WestCare of the Self, pp. 219 - 240Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018