The goal of this paper is to analyze the relationship between pedagogy and the emergence of contemporary Korean architecture after the 1990s. For this purpose, the paper deals with the education and work of two important contemporary Korean architects, Kim Seung Hoy and Choi Wook. Kim and Choi were part of a group of young architects that went abroad in the 1980s to study at the centers of architectural education in Europe and the United States. Through their education and work, the paper discusses the relationship among education, history, and design practice in architecture. During their studies at Michigan University and IUAV in Venice, they were commonly influenced by Colin Rowe through their studios. In the case of Kim Seung Hoy, he was introduced to the Beaux Arts logic of the analytique and esquisse through the teaching of Steven Hurrt, a disciple of Colin Rowe. Choi Wook took studios that involved formal analysis and comparison of Palladio and Le Corbusier. The paper further analyzes their works in Korea by employing the concepts of fragments and systems, ignorance and knowledge. The paper concludes that, in Korean contemporary architecture, fragments and systems, ignorance and knowledge, lie in the middle of ongoing creative process that must distinguished from the West, where architectural history provides an established tradition of systematic knowledge.