The contemporary South Korean landscape is characterized by a massive display of modern apartment buildings. They are omnipresent in their monotonous manifestation and represent the dream of the Korean population. Serial mass housing is a typology that has had a great diffusion all over the world, but how has modern housing developed in South Korea? To this end, what are the resulting adaptations? This paper retraces these key evolutional aspects. Methodologically, it draws on a scholarly literature review as well as on-site photographic surveys, analyzing both the urban and architectural transformation from the early modernization period to the present condition of contemporary housing. An historical background introduces Korean traditional urban houses, to be used as a context to describe the contemporary modern city that has developed since the 1960s. The main emphasis is then placed on the urbanization process that fully matured during the 1980s together with a focus on the mass housing typology as the main pivot in the urban transformation. Finally, the paper will draw a parallel between modern Western theories and Korean applications. The first great modernization impact on the Korean peninsula occurred during the Japanese colonization period (1910-45). Japan exerted huge pressure on Korea even before its annexation. The first urbanization wave dates back to 1876 when Korea was forced to drop its long-held policy of isolation. Ten port cities and five inland cities opened to trade, generating new needs in modern urban planning. 1Starting from the 1930s, Japan designated the Korean colony to be an engine of the Japanese military complex for its imperialistic expansion plan. Consequently, a great deal of new infrastructure was developed around the country. Seoul did not register any large spatial transformation from its foundation year (1394) to the colonization period. Starting from 1910, the “ordering of streets” urban policy altered the original street network, widening existing thoroughfares and building new roads. The main purpose was to merely introduce economic and military principles in the organization of the urban space, completely altering the traditional principles of the original city. Urban design prior to this time was based on a conventional oriental geomantic idea called Pungsu – Feng Shui in Chinese – a set of theoretical principles based on the study of the wind and water. While the main urban fabric was based on a gridiron layout, there existed a maze of secondary arteries. Gelézeau described the space between the axis as follows: “Roads providing access to the houses branch chaotically, forming a convoluted maze of frequent dead-ends, all highlighting the essentially pedestrian nature of this network.