Born 1935 in Seoul, Jong Soung Kimm has his roots in Korea, but spent his most instructive years as architect in Chicago. After graduation at the Illinoise Institut of Technology, he worked in the office of Mies van der Rohe for eleven years until 1972. Projects included in this time were the realization of the Toronto-Domination Centre Banking Hall, the Reception Hall on the 54th floor of the T-D Center, and the exhibition design of the new Brown Wing Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. All these projects show the unique manner of Mies van der Rohe and his staff to deal with tectonic space and its creation, and had a great influence on the work of Kimm. In 1968 he was authorized to organised the Mies van der Rohe exhibition at the „Akademie der Künste“ in Berlin.

>From 1966 to 1978, Jong Soung Kimm additional taught design studios at the IIT, but in 1978, he returned to his native Seoul, and organized the architectural design consultancy SAC International, Ltd., Architects-Consultants. For the last thirty years, Kimm formed a body of built work which encompasses a wide range of building types, including the internationally recognized Weight-lifting Gymnasium for 1988 Seoul Olympics, the Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyongju, the Energy Systems Research Center and the University Hospital for Ajou University in Suwon, the Hotel Hilton International in Seoul, and the Headquarters Building for SK Corporation in Seoul.

His buildings show an offensive admiration for Mies van der Rohe, but at the same time a pronounced Korean sensibility, rooted in the culture in which Jong Soung Kimm grew up, thus creating a unique combining of both aspects.

During the last decade, Jong Soung Kimm has actively participated in the international exchange of architectural ideas as a speaker or panelist at such prominent institutions as the UIA Congress in Montreal, 1990; ANYWISE Conference in Seoul, 1995; the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art & the Humanities in Los Angeles, 1998; the Third International Symposium on Architectural Interchanges in Asia in Cheju City, Korea, 2000; the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat world congress in me Melbourne in 2001.

>From the introduction: „A general understanding of Jong Soung Kimm’s architecture can be found in the evolution of Modern Architecture that encompassed Germany, the United States, and Korea. Kimm challenged the tenets of early Twentieth century Modern Architecture and attempted to reinvigorate it to suit our contemporary times. In particular, Kimm focused on the works of Mies van der Rohe, which was only natural, considering that Kimm had worked in Mies van der Rohe’s office for 11 years, starting in 1961. Based on architectural principles of Mies, Jong Soung Kimm paved the way for a new spatiality, without being overwhelmed by ideals of excessive technological determinism and ornamental High Tech architecture. This was Kimm’s response to harsh criticism leveled against Modern Architecture starting in the 1960's. Like Mies van der Rohe, Kimm placed great importance on tectonics in architecture; however, he drove these points further by infusing these tenets with his own abundant and intuitive imagination, which defines the innovativeness of Kimm’s architecture. Within contemporary architecture where ideas of cyberspace dominate the rhetoric, Kimm’s architecture certainly deserves to be re-evaluated. Kimm’s powerful use of steel components is difficult to find in contemporary architecture, which is why his buildings, constructed twenty to thirty years ago, still attract our attention today.“