After four long years of preparation, the Seoul Branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art finally had its grand opening. Even President Park Geun-hye attended the ceremony to celebrate the opening of an urban museum for everyone.

A museum is not simply a place to admire artwork, but a source of imaginative and creative ideas and an advocate of spiritual enrichment and artistic sentiments. It was unfortunate that there was no National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, but now we have a museum right here in the middle of the city, without walls for the public’s easy access to cultural experiences. I hope the opening of the Museum’s new Seoul Branch can give you cultural satisfaction and spiritual fulfillment and inspire your creativity and imagination.



The Seoul Branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art faces the eastern walls of Gyeongbok Palace across the street and stands adjacent to the Bukchon Hanok Village and traditional Samcheong-dong and Insa-dong neighborhoods. Lush trees welcome visitors and the shapely eaves of the Joseon era building peek out from between the old, red-bricked Defense Security Command building and the brand new museum. The land for the new Seoul Branch covering over 52 thousand square meters is also a historical site. Here’s Chung Hyung-min정형민, Director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, to tell us more about the branch’s historical significance.

The building was first built in the late 1920s and used as a hospital during the Japanese occupation. Since Korea’s liberation, it was commandeered as a military hospital and the Defense Security Command. It is a contemporary building, since it was built during the 1920s. Behind it is a Joseon-era building where the royal family’s genealogical records were kept and the new museum is between that and the Defense Security Command, so there are three structures from the Joseon period to contemporary and modern eras standing in the same complex.

The genealogical department for the Joseon royal family was moved when the Defense Security Command was erected there, but the old building was brought back to its original location in time for the opening of the museum’s Seoul Branch. So the latest branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is a testament to three different historical eras and architectural styles. Here’s the museum’s director Chung Hyung-min again.



The buildings themselves are distinctive because they each represent different eras. Also, present-day art and culture can be better understood if we know about art and culture of the past. So the museum will strive to show modern art while keeping the link between the past and present open. There is no other place more perfect than this to encompass the past, present and future.

It was back in 1969 when Korea’s first national art museum was founded. It started out small inside Gyeongbok Palace and later moved to Deoksu Palace in 1973. But even then the museum was housed in a leased building. It wasn’t until 1986 that the museum opened in its own building in Gwacheon.

The building for the Deoksugung Branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was erected in the 1930s, during the Japanese colonial period. So the Deoksugung Branch building itself is a part of Korea’s contemporary history and it seems more fitting to exhibit contemporary art there. Meanwhile, the Gwacheon Branch may not be easy to access, but has a beautiful park nearby as well as a sculpture garden. Its exhibition halls are great, making the museum an important sponsor of Korean art and artists.

But Gwacheon was just too far from the city center. When the Defense Security Command in the old section of the capital city was scheduled to relocate to Gwacheon, the museum moved fast to seize the site for itself.

Other cultural organizations have been eyeing the site. But we campaigned that the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art had to be built on that site, because the Gwacheon Branch was too far away and many people were of the opinion that a modern art museum should be in the middle of a city. The Museum got its hands on the site in early 2009 and then chose an architect. It took a total of four years to open the Museum here.

The Seoul Branch officially opened on November 13th, emerging as the city’s new landmark along with the Deoksugung and Gwacheon Branches of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Since the new modern art museum is built on a historical site, it was designed to balance out the tradition and modernity. Here’s architect Min Hyun-joon민현준 who designed the Seoul Branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The goal was for the museum building to stand inconspicuously among the surroundings, to harmonize with Gyeongbok Palace and draw attention to the genealogical department building instead. So I nicknamed the museum as a “shapeless museum.”

Min’s idea was chosen among 118 other entries. The design concept was to place the museum building outside of the focus of attention. So the building is shaped like a white cube, which could contain all types of artwork – paintings, photographs, sculptures, installation art pieces, and what not – and not stand out at all. If you came to the Seoul Branch to see the architecture, you will be hugely disappointed because the structure itself is unimpressive. Here’s architect Min Hyun-joon once again.

You can’t tell which side is the front and which is the back. It’s shaped like an apartment complex or a neighborhood, with lots of alleys cutting across the museum building. That’s what makes the museum so open. There will be a cafeteria and a food court to make visitors feel more like they’re taking a walk through a neighborhood. You don’t have to dress up like you’re going to a serious place. Here you can come as you are.




There are no walls so people can come from all directions and walk the grounds anytime. The barriers between art and people have been removed. Here’s architect Min Hyun-joon again.

Going to the museum should not be a special occasion which takes up a whole day and you end up going home exhausted. You can come here like you go to a theater and see the artworks for an hour and a half or so, go home and come back next week for another hour of museum visit. It’s an everyday museum, an open museum. So you don’t have to set an appointment to come here, but just drop by like you would go to a coffee shop or a supermarket. It was designed to allow easy access to culture and art.

The museum features a number of “yards,” a feature that invites the general public to get closer to art. If you enter the museum from the Samcheong-dong side, you will see an open courtyard, and if you come from the Bukchon side, you will come through the library yard. Also, Gyeongbokgung Madang is located to the Gyeongbok palace side.

I put madangs or courtyards so a quiet, open place is the first thing you see when you enter the museum. It’s placed right there near the entrance so people from the nearby areas can come and go as they please. The museum building is divided into seven separate sections and placed around the madangs so as to not crowd out the surrounding buildings. There are 12 madangs of all sizes. Some are open to plain view, but some are rather obscure so people would have fun discovering the hidden places as they make repeat visits.

The 12 madangs serve as stroll paths, resting places, and small concert venues. They can also be transformed into outdoor exhibition halls when sculptures are displayed there. Gallery Madang located in the middle of the basement exhibition hall is right next to a movie theater and a multi-project hall. There is grass and even tables and chairs so people can take a break from their tour of the museum. Most museums are laid out to direct a flow of people from the front entrance out through the souvenir shop. But the Seoul Branch of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art follows no particular traffic patterns, so people can choose to go in any direction they like, through the eight white cube-shaped exhibition halls scattered around the grounds like islands.

(Man 1) I used to visit the Gwacheon Branch often, but it was hard getting there. But this museum is in the middle of the city, so it’s easy to get to and it’s visually stimulating, because it houses big pieces.
(Man 2) It is nice to see a site with ill repute get a makeover like this into an art museum. It’s close to the city center and some of the installation art pieces are ingenious.

On the day of the opening, roughly 3,900 people visited the museum, about 500 per hour. Even during the nighttime hours 500 more people came, illustrating the museum’s popularity. In marking the opening, the Seoul Branch is hosting five special exhibits. Here’s Director Chung Hyung-min of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art for more.

There are five exhibits. The first exhibit is comprised of Korean modern artworks which reflect the spirit, history, and issues of the nation’s modern era. The second exhibit is titled “Connecting, Unfolding,” which demonstrates how MMCA Seoul is an integral part of a worldwide network of art. A team of seven curators from all over the world worked together to select the works to be featured here. The Aleph Project is our third exhibit. This is a new type of art project that incorporates many different specialties, such as astronomy, mechanical engineering, and computer science, completing a very future-oriented artistic platform. Fourth is Suh Do-ho’s서도호 huge fabric installation, which is part of the site-specific art project in which an artist is invited to produce a piece that best represents the given space. The fifth exhibit documents the archived records of the museum-building process. The photos and audio records from the site selection to the completion of the museum are on display.



The five exhibits feature roughly 120 pieces of artworks by some 70 artists. The most eye-catching piece, though, is Suh Do-ho’s “Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home.” When you walk through the long hallway on the first floor, you come to an open space and a huge blue house. This immense work of art is 12 meters high and 15 meters wide, starting in the basement and stretching all the way to the third floor. Here’s MMCA Seoul’s resident scholar Lee Chu-young이추영.

This huge installation artwork is based on artist Suh Do-ho’s concept of home as a personal space. The reason the title contains five “homes” is that the work is comprised of a three-story townhouse he used to live in the U.S. and a hanok hanging in the middle of the former. As the title implies, this artwork exemplifies the expanding concept of space: traditional hanok inside western-style house, western style house within Seoul Box, Seoul Box within the Seoul branch, the Seoul branch within Seoul.

There are eight exhibition halls in MMCA Seoul. Exhibition Halls 1 and 2, which are free, now feature 60 carefully selected works of art that best represent the spirit of Korean modern art. The remaining six halls will display special exhibits introducing foreign artists and new art disciplines. MMCA Seoul is expected to bridge the past and future of Korean art and take Korean modern art into the next level, just like the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.