SPACE November 2025 (No. 696)
Rendering image of the exhibition ‘Architectural Façade System’ displaying a 1:1 scale façade of the building on the museum’s external balcony in the Korean Museum of Urbanism and Architecture (KMUA)’s inaugural exhibition. ©Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport + SIGONGtech Co., Ltd
Rendering image of the exhibition ‘Above and Below the Road’, exploring urban and architectural infrastructure, in the KMUA’s inaugural exhibition. ©Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport + SIGONGtech Co., Ltd.
On Sep. 25, the Federation of Institutes of Korean Architects hosted Korea Architecture Day 2025 at Architects Hall. During the event, Sung Hong Kim (professor emeritus, University of Seoul) delivered a keynote lecture titled ‘The Birth and Vision of Korean Museum of Urbanism and Architecture’. For the first time, he unveiled the detailed content and development process of the inaugural exhibition. As an unprecedented complex project that simultaneously involves architecture, exhibition planning, and the acquisition of collections, the comprehensive blueprint for inaugural exhibition including the physical conditions of the site, the organisational structure formed through public-private collaboration led by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and the development process, was revealed during this presentation.
Kim, appointed as the director in 2021, began his speech by emphasising the obstacles and struggles he faced during the planning process, as well as the strategic approaches devised in response. He continued to point out that one of the biggest problems was the conceptual gap between art museums and general museums in Korea, a distinction that was adopted and introduced during Japan’s Meiji Restoration. While the dictionary defines a museum as a permanent institution that researches, collects, preserves, and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage, in Korea, the term has often been conflated with the concept of an art museum, which traditionally centres around exhibiting original artworks. In contrast, many museums often cannot display original objects and must rely on replicas or reconstructions. This limitation presented a major challenge: how to communicate meaningfully with the public without heavy textual explanations or original objects. To tackle this issue, his curatorial team devised two strategies: first, to allow visitors to experience the multiple scales of cities and architecture within the exhibition space; second, to expose the invisible underlying structures and sections of urban environments, such as underground spaces and infrastructure.
In the latter half of the lecture, the inaugural exhibition, ‘Building Life: Urban Architecture Korea 1950 – 2010’, was introduced. The exhibition consists of ten thematic topics, all structured around a shared narrative framework. Each section explores three key questions: what governmental context produced the architecture, who the architects and urban professionals were, and how their work affected the lives of citizens. To be more specific, the exhibition begins with a special section on the identity and formation process of Korean Museum of Urbanism and Architecture (KMUA), followed by a chronological overview of Korea’s urban and architectural history from the 1950s to 2010. Other highlights include a detailed display of 60 years of housing history, divided into apartment and non-apartment types; a sectional model exhibition of urban infrastructure supports; a section on construction methods focusing on reinforced concrete that best represents contemporary Korean architectural materials and techniques; a showcase of key figures from the first generation of Korean architects and urban planners; and an exhibit on how changes in design tools shaped architectural practice over time. It also features outdoor exhibitions and installations such as an actual-size of façade mock-up on the balcony. In general, it is evident that the curatorial team sought to balance expertise and public accessibility in a range of ways. Instead of relying on written explanations, it emphasises the physicality of the objects on display. Models are scaled up to 1:5, 1:10, and 1:30, allowing visitors to engage with them in a more tangible, immediate way. Kim, emphasised that, unlike traditional museum models where a collection is assembled first and exhibitions follow, the KMUA takes a reversed process: the exhibition itself serves as a form of archiving that leads into the collection. He concluded the lecture by emphasising the importance of support and attention from the Korean architecture community. The KMUA, which broke new ground last year, is scheduled for completion in 2026.