A Study on Modern culture through 1930s Urban Novels
-Focusing on the ‘Tea-room and cafe’-
In pursuit of finding the origin of today’s culture, we aim to research into the era of 1930’s in Kyung-Sung, the place that is accumulated with various modern changes. In particular, to deduce the modern cultural changes that are reflected visually, we analysed the spatial characteristics. Special focus was placed on ‘Tea-room and Cafe’, a renowned ‘star of the urbiculture’, being widely known foreign culture of the time. Through this work, cultural aspects and the spatial reflection projected by the work was also sought.
This treatise is intended to analyze the urban novel which is one literary style of 1930s, This treatise is intended to analyze the urban novel which is one literary style of 1930s. Primary examples are
Park Tae Won, Lee Sang, Lee Tae Jun, Lee Hyo Seok's works.
In a broad sense, ‘Tea-room and cafe’ constitutes as a place of leisure, social gathering and consumption. However, the places provide very different inner spatial atmosphere.
As a place of leisure, both the tea-room and cafe became a place where melancholy and tiredness accumulated due to the process of disciplining becoming common for people. Furthermore, the place was found to exhibit the split sign of the community by weakened inter-relationships, thereby not being able to fulfill the function as a place of socialization. The spending culture reflects the bourgeois attitudes that was founded by foreign cultural concepts and realization that led to formulate an unconscious spending trend that lacks subjectivity. Negativity of the modern era, founded by a rapid urbanization and industrialization, is observed to burden the lives of people. Furthermore, the spread of bourgeois thoughts based on capitalism raised incongruity amongst social classes or forced the unconscious non-subjective spending culture to occur that is fueled by organized, enforced desires. This is furthermore complexed by the unique circumstance of ‘Chosun’ as a nation, as it was faced with colonization by Japan that widely-promoted unemployment and alienation.
Thusfar, the two places provide a stage for all the unique characteristics of the era and modern cultural aspects to dynamically mix and contributing towards culminating a unique culture of 1930s.