Co-founded by two honorary chairmen, Jeongcheol Kim and Jeongsik Kim, Junglim Architecture set out with the name of Junglim Architecture Research Center in 1967. Founded in a poor condition, i.e. a former Japanese house which was a shabby single-story building located along the Eulji-ro Road, the company nevertheless won contracts in a row from Seoul Women’s University Auditorium and President’s Residence, to Daekwang High School Auditorium and Science Hall, and Hanyang Chemical Company Housing and Plant. As the company came to expand its design organization into about 30 persons, so the young architects were aspiring and enthusiastic more than anyone else.

The founding philosophy of Junglim Architecture Research Center based on righteousness and sincerity is as follows:
“First, we aim at corresponding to the needs of present-day society and contributing to the national development and environmental amelioration with future-oriented activities of creation. Second, we perform technological innovation and complete total design through systematic and total activities of creation. Third, we aim at elevating our technological level to the international standards by ceaselessly developing technology and accumulating its advancement, and furthermore, pursue enhancement of national prestige and the saving and earning of foreign currency,”

Moving to Samok Building located at Bukchang-dong, the firm progressed with such important projects as Seoul National University Gwanak Campus Main Building (1973), Korea Exchange Bank Headquarters Design Competition Winner (1973), and Samyangsa Corporation Headquarters (1974). Upon the opportunity of winning the KEB Headquarters Design Competition, Junglim keenly felt the needs of group-based collaborative design and prepared for a new beginning to elevate its technological level in collaboration with foreign architects.

Junglim designed this building whose tower and podium parts were made separate for the first time as a symbolic building that hinted at a prelude for the skyscraper era. Also, the company designed the outdoor space for citizens, efficiently resolving the dual task of reflecting the corporate values as well as the urban context. With the KEB Headquarters Design Competition Winner as a momentum, Junglim was able to establish a solid foothold in Korean architecture society.

Registered as Junglim Architecture, Co. Ltd. In lieu of the previous Junglim Architecture Research Center, the company updated it organization in a way of covering professionals in all architecture-related fields, thus having a total design infrastructure incorporating design, architecture, structure, mechanics, electrics, disaster prevention, landscaping, and environment.

Moves to the newly constructed building, the former headquarters at Yeongeon-dong, Jongno-gu

After winning the Ewha Womans University Total Science Hall project in 1980, Junglim Architecture carried out as many as 22 projects in the university from Central Library, College of Law and Politics Hall, to Engineering Hall in 2005. The company’s organization consisting of professionals by fields and their outstanding performance became the basis of maintaining partnership with Ewha Womans University for over 30 years.

In 1984 when Junglim’s annual value of orders was only about 1 billion won, the company invested as much as 200 million won to introduce the computer-aided design system firstly amongst Korean architectural design firms. The CAD system helped improve the quality of design by dramatically shortening time taken for simple repetitive drawings of the same pattern as well as refined and sophisticated expressions.

Korea Word Trade Center (KWTC) located in the center of Gangnam area in Seoul is the symbolic landmark representative of the globalization of Korea in the 1980s, designed to flexibly accommodate the events related to the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Designed in collaboration between Junglim Architecture and Nikken Sekkei (Japan), KWTC is a space that reflects the socio-economic change at the time as it does so now as well.

Junglim complied the standard detailed drawings used by the design department into the publication Architectural Details firstly in the Korean industry. Publicized in the market, the book was praised for contributing to the improvement of design quality in Korea.

Junglim published Junglim Architecture 1967-1987, the company’s portfolio for the past 20 years, while opening an exhibition and ceremony with clients who had ceaselessly trusted and supported us. At the venue, we resolved to grow and develop towards the new 20 years.

The trust and work capacity built up by Junglim led to the main symbolic project of the nation, represented by the Blue House Main Building and Chunchugwan (press office). Junglim’s design reflected the relationship between nature and the building, architecturally reinterpreting the Korean traditional style and beauty, as well as the situation of the times, thus creating profound space assimilated with the surroundings rather than momentarily showy buildings.

Junglim, as one of the consortium which would be Korean Architects Collaborative International (KACI), accomplished the splendid feat of winning the Incheon International Airport Design Competition in which many world-renowned architects participated; our winning project was appraised as the most Koreanesque design whose Korean identity was telling than that of any other contenders. This project led to the construction documentation, and became completed in 1997.

For the first time as a Korean architectural design firm, Junglim published the company newsletter Daecheong-maru so as to explore efficient in-house communication.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, Junglim Architecture built its new headquarters and sublimated the dismantlement of the former headquarters into an artistic event themed “Architecture Meets Art.” As the first installation art performance in Korea that utilized the dismantled building parts as objects, this event was named the “Dismantling Trio of Seungtaek Lee, Eunyeop Kang and Sanghyeon Lee,” giving a refreshing and joyful shock to the culture circle.

Junglim won the International Design Competition for the National Museum of Korea―accompanying the demolition of the old Japanese Government General building which originally functioned as the National Museum of Korea―amongst more than about 300 contenders in and out of country. Junglim’s proposal was appraised as that which “managed to resolve the complex functions into clear circulations effectively, expressing the image of the museum as an important public building of the nation.” Also, NMK is being appraised as the work that represents the prestige of the leading museum of Korea.

With the 30th anniversary ahead, Junglim Architecture undertook the design of a new corporate identity (CI), decided and set out to build a new headquarters, as a resolute action for its long-term development plan and the second leap. However, such willful promotion of serial projects ceased with the IMF financial crisis, a great suffering that could not be resolved only by Junglim’s efforts.

Yonsei University Severance New Hospital is a large-scale building accommodating 1,000 beds which was an unprecedented scale at the time. The patient-centered healing environment it provides and its flexibly-curved facades are impressive. Actively responding to the changing environment and spirit of the times, this project present a symbolic model of healthcare design carried out in collaboration with Ellerbe Becket (US).

Like a beacon of the Daehak-ro Road that lights up the culture street, Junglim Architecture moved to the newly completed headquarters at Yeongeon-dong in spite of the IMF financial crisis, hoping that the building would sustain as a pivotal beacon lighting up the world of Korean architecture and culture.

Junglim achieved the splendid feat of winning the Seoul World Cup Stadium Design Competition, being appraised as having suggested an excellent design and an economical construction plan with the concepts of “a small but rich tray” and “a traditional kite to launch hope.” This project was characterized by the public space which was not limited to game spectators but also assigned for the commercial complex at the lower part, ideally grafting the traditional to the contemporary.

Compiling the works carried out for the year, Junglim Architecture published its first annual portfolio named Junglim Architecture Works 2002. This publication of an annual portfolio shows Junglim’s will to lead design culture and widely publicize the young talent of the company. Since then, Junglim has compiled and announced the process and outcome of works performed for the year, publicizing the new vision and various works of the company.

With the overarching theme of ‘Globalizing Tradition of Korean Architecture,’ the Junglim Architecture Awards for Student began from 2005. For the purpose of exploring and globalizing the Korean identity while reflecting the contemporaneity of present-day architecture, this student awards competition has been held every year to date.

Welcoming its 40th Anniversary, Junglim Architecture made the epoch-making case in the industry that “a design group separated possession and management,” with the founders’ genuine will and radical attempt. This case became a new model of success in the architecture industry.

Welcoming its 42th Anniversary, Junglim Architecture set the mission of “contributing to the world where people live together by creating sound spatial environment” and the vision of becoming a “happy workplace, sound architectural culture group, and imitable company.” To realize these, we chose such core values as human, trust, teamwork, excellence, leadership, openness, and sustainability.

Lotte World Shenyang was the large-scale complex project whose total floor area measures about 1.52 million sq. m. (0.46 million py.), the contract of which Junglim won as the master architect with other design firms such as the China Construction Northeast Design and Research Institute, Sho Okuno Architect and Associates (Japan), and RTKL (US). With this project, Junglim was able to publicize the abroad advancement of a large-scale complex shopping mall and a luxury-style housing complex.

Appraised as a role model of urban regeneration project, the Times Square at Yeongdeung-po is a complex entertainment space consisting of department store, mall, cinema, hotel, bookstore, mart, and rental offices in accord with the will of Kyungbang Co. Ltd. to renew the existing factory site. As a foundation for Junglim Architecture’s commercial complex projects, the Times Square presents a new public space in Korea of the 21st century, put into the everyday life while reflecting the core concept of urban entertainment lifestyle center, “shopping as a lifestyle.”

Classifying the data of construction materials used in design practice by fields and trades, the company compiled and published the descriptions, characteristics, application cases, and design tips of products used in each trade along with detailed construction images.

Junglim Foundation was established to build up the sound ecosystem for Korean architecture. For the purpose of serving the social role of architecture to activate the sense of community, we have endeavored to promote active exchange with art and culture beyond architecture, holding various programs via media, education, forum, exhibition, community research, and publication, to become a balanced mediator of Korean architectural culture.

Having served as a leader of the industry based on sound philosophy and values, Junglim Architecture began to explore how to make sustainable growth towards 100 years of its history in the social structure which is increasingly diversified and specialized. We planned a five-staged leadership course to encourage individual employees to have their own sound philosophy, elicit diversity amongst them, and make successful teamworks so as to grow as capable leaders in future. From the first stage about “self-Leadership”, the course began to set out with all the staff.

Rechecking the mission, vision, and core values of Junglim Architecture enacted and declared in June 2009 from the current perspective, we reduced the existing seven core values into five ones (human, trust, teamwork, excellence, and sustainability) so as to clarify their significance.

Planned by joint investment of the Korean corporation Shinsegye and the US shopping-specialized company Taubman, Starfield Hanam is a large-scale shopping mall whose motive was the natural landscape of surroundings. For a single building, Starfield was once recognized as the largest shopping mall and is an interior urban space that suggests a new lifestyle. Recombining freshly the sense of comfort found in American shopping malls with the exotic view experienced in Southeast Asian hotels and such elements as water park, Starfield presents a new type of leisurely culture as a one-stop shopping complex.

As an action plan towards the 100 years of history, the company declared “Junglim Way 2017 ver. 1.0―We Work in This Way.” The Junglim Way is based on the four perspectives described as “We to each other, I to Junglim, Junglim to me, and Junglim to society,” reflecting what can be implemented in the company in terms of human, trust, teamwork, excellence, and sustainability.

Junglim Architecture published a BIM guidebook in collaboration with Autodesk based on the memorandum of understanding. Junglim provided its seasoned specialists’ BIM practice, while Autodesk offered technological support and the platform for many people to use.

Welcoming its 50th anniversary, Junglim Architecture made the slogan ‘50 Years Righteously, 100 Years Together!’ which suggests the company has never settled for the past but been evolving towards a centennial corporate history based on righteous values, mission, and justice.

In the UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress, Junglim Architecture exhibited its fifty representative works themed “Ordinary Senses,” amongst the whole portfolio for the past fifty years. The fifty works selected by the vote of employees were classified by four senses. In the 50th anniversary of our company, we intended to highlight through the UIA exhibition the public value Junglim has contributed to the modern history of Korean architecture.

Junglim Architecture moves again to the center of the four main gates of Seoul, ending its half-century operation in Yeongeong-dong, Jongno-gu, where it settled after its formative years at a small atelier in Eulji-ro in 1967. Most importantly, it will gain the sense of place by moving into the cultural and administrative center of Korea. Relocating into the center of the four main gates adjacent to the city hall and the Seoul Station is expected not only to improve the accessibility to the traffic network, but also to provide great convenience for the staff of Junglim given its project sites cover the whole country. Indeed, this relocation of the headquarters will cater to Junglim's values such as the "human-centric", "realization of a sound organization" and "training of human resources." looking forward to inspiring its employees with self-confidence, as well as improving work efficiency.