Photographing the Breath of the City: An Architectural Narrative

Standing before the works of artist Jinha Park, one is reminded that a city is far more than a mere assemblage of physical structures. His photographs function not simply as representations or documents, but as architectural narratives that unravel the sedimented layers of time and the emotional resonance of space. While his subjects may be familiar urban scenes, Park evokes an unfamiliar sensibility in the viewer. This is not merely the introduction of a novel vantage point, but rather a recalibration of rhythm through which we experience the very ‘breath’ of the city.

In these scenes, Park observes the city much like a classical planner gazing from above. Yet his gaze is not one of vertical dominance, but of horizontal receptivity. The city’s forms emerge quietly through light and shadow, and its material textures and surfaces become metaphors for historical strata. If architecture is, ultimately, the frame that supports and receives the trajectories of human life, then Park’s photographs seem to pose a paradoxical question about architecture’s ontological origins.

From an urban theoretical perspective, his work may be seen as a visual articulation of what Martin Heidegger described as Gegendlichkeit, or placeness. The photograph sensuously affirms the proposition that a city should not be a mere functional aggregate, but a place—a condition for being-in-the-world. Specifically, the interaction of elements Kevin Lynch identified in The Image of the City—edges, landmarks, districts, nodes, and paths—are exquisitely orchestrated within Park’s frame. The interplay of varying depths of perspective, the repetition and balance of form, and the flow of light between structures all resemble a kind of blueprint that records the rhythms and tensions of the urban fabric.

Architecturally, his gaze transcends surface form and speaks in the language of composition. As Aldo Rossi proposed in his notion of ‘architecture of memory,’ Park’s images capture the traces of time and collective unconscious inscribed within urban structures. Or, in line with Bernard Tschumi’s theory of the intersection between event and programme, even within these still frames, occurrences unfold and thought expands. The structural elements harbour the potential for movement, and the photograph condenses these nodes of latent energy.

Above all, Park’s works embody not a ‘cold distance’ but a ‘warm contemplation’ in their approach to space. His is not a gaze that seeks to conquer, but one that seeks to understand—a reflective posture that listens to the presence of things. This gentleness invites us to reimagine a human-centred city, one detached from the logic of mechanical production, capital accumulation, and relentless development. Park’s photography becomes a kind of ritual for recovering what the city has forgotten: the sensibility of its breath, the possibility of a different urban future.

https://youtu.be/kq1uUlLe9CA?si=FAjzfXyPeVI6RWAs

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