Curious on how Kdrama portrays architect as an ideal boyfriend? What would be architect’s limit of romance and imagination on dating? What is it like to date an architect in a perfect Kdrama world?

1. Architecture 101, 2002: Lee Seung-min (Uhm Tae-woong)
   The basic 101 of architects getting into Kdrama blackhole. The story starts with two students who meet in Intro to Architecture class and fall in love. It does not really portray the actual architecture student live, not accurate. On the other hand, falling in love in an intense architecture studio setting is pretty common. Lee Seung-min, our architect is now in his mid 30s and got a commission from a woman client that turns out to become his first love whom he met in the class. Our architect was initially hesitant to take the job offer, which is to renovate her house in Jeju Island.
   Not realistic, why would you turn down such a potential masterpiece project in a very good location with beautiful view. Learn from the master, Frank Lloyd Wright has always been able to convert romance into projects. That made him a legend.

2. Lovestruck In the City, 2020: Park Jae-won (Ji Chang-wook)
   The series portrays a 32-year-old architect working in a corporate firm. The young architect leads a design team and reports to his uncle who is the CEO of the company (of course). He has passion in photography and travel, pretty accurate and typical hobby for young architects. Typical with architects, he travels with a bag full of his analog camera collections. Not typical, he does not always wear black, in fact it’s very rare to see architects wearing black in this series. Perhaps they have moved away from the tradition, or it’s just less likely to see in a corporate setting. He is very romantic and gentleman but a bit clueless in understanding women. Do you think it’s pretty accurate for architect boyfriend?

3. Personal Taste, 2010: Jeon Jin-ho (Lee Min-ho)
   This k-drama story is about a struggling one-man-show architect fighting to win projects against large design corporation. It is a novel premise, almost like David vs Goliath. However, I am a bit judgmental on Lee Min-ho’s architecture style. For instance, by looking from the model design and choice of color on the model. In other words, judging by that, it’s got to be even a steeper ladder for him to compete with more established architecture firms. Do you think its would end well? Or he ended up winning someone’s heart instead?

4. Sweet and Sour, 2021: Hyuk (Jang Ki-yong)
   This movie portrays a very realistic workplace romance scenario. An engineer and a designer have to work late consecutively for a period of time. They are tasked to develop the design of a project in an expedited timeline. Apparently this is typical in the architecture / engineering firm. Now you know how to get your act together in the office!

There you have it! Do you think what’s portrayed in those drama pretty accurate? Do you have any other K-drama recommendation for architects to watch? Let us know in the comment below!