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Pungmoon Girls‘ High School in the Bukchon neighborhood of Seoul

Can Seoul really be transformed into a city of museums over the next five years?

The museum making project that Seoul Metropolitan Government is undertaking on an unprecedented scale has recently become a hot topic for discussion in the culture world.

The brainchild of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and his associates in the field of culture, the project has been picking up speed since last year. It will involve building no fewer than 13 museums in Seoul by 2022, including the Korean Handicraft Museum, the West Seoul Museum and the Nam June Paik Memorial Center (named after the prominent Korean video artist), for a cost of 300 billion won (US$259.63 million).

Working with the museum promotion committee, which was set up last June, the city has been moving forward with the preparatory work for the 13 museum projects it has finalized. It is currently determining which city organizations will run the new facilities.

When Park began his second term as mayor of Seoul in 2014, he indicated his commitment to building more museums in the city, and he reportedly instructed associates and employees to come up with ideas for several hundred museums.

which is slated to be the site of the Handicraft Museum.

This past fall, the idea project was entrusted to Kim Hong-nam, former director of the National Museum of Korea and a confidante of Park‘s, who narrowed the proposals down to 13 projects by the end of the year. Last month, the city passed an organizational plan for the Cultural Facility Project Promotion Team, which is taking charge of the project, and it has now started drawing up the blueprints.

The official launch of the promotion team is scheduled for this July, and the team is supposed to finalize the basic plan for building the major museums by the end of the year.

The Seoul Museum of Art has been particularly gung ho about the project, setting up its own project promotion team this year and recruiting exhibition planned Kim Hee-jin to lead it.

Four of the museum projects are being supervised by the Seoul Museum of Art. There is the West Seoul Museum, which will be built at Nokji Park behind the Geumcheon District Office; a cultural complex including the Art Library, which will be built on the former location of a gas station in the Pyeongchang neighborhood; the Nam June Paik Memorial Center, which will occupy Nam’s former home in the Changshin neighborhood; and the Photography Museum, which will be built in the Changdong Cultural Plaza.

The Nam June Paik Memorial Center will open this July, after renovations are completed on the traditional Korean building that will house it. There will be an international competition for the design of the Pyeongchang cultural complex.

The other nine museums will deal with topics not related to art. The one that is being given the highest priority is the Handicraft Museum, which the city will be operating itself.

The museum, which will include a huge exhibition hall covering the history of Korean handicrafts from ancient times until the present, will be built on the site of Pungmoon Girls‘ High School in the Bukchon neighborhood of Seoul for approximately 130 billion won (US$112.64 million).

The Seoul Museum of History will be in charge of operating a number of these facilities: the Citizens’ Lifestyle History Museum, which will be housed in the former building of the Northern District Court in the Gongneung neighborhood; the City Rebirth Museum, on the old site of Donuimun Gate; and the Seoul City Wall Museum in Dongdaemun, which will be rebuilt and expanded.

No operating body has yet been chosen for the Folk Song Museum at Donhwamun Street by Changdeok Palace, an outdoor museum on the excavation site of Pungnaptoseong Fortress, a museum in the Seongbuk neighborhood depicting a typical four-way intersection during the Joseon Dynasty, or a robot museum in the Chang neighborhood aimed at providing “edutainment.”

“Since this is the biggest museum project ever undertaken by a local governmental body in Korea, it will probably have a big effect on the policies of other local governments. Our goal is to build museums at various places around the outskirts of Seoul to restore balance to the culture and welfare enjoyed by city residents,” said Kim Hong-nam.

Figures in the world of art and culture are viewing the project with a mixture of expectation and concern.

While these figures support the goal of filling every corner of the city with museums as richer countries do, they see trouble on the horizon because of the conflicting interests of craftspeople and artists working in different genres. Another problem is the city’s attempt to rush the project through while Park is still in office. Some also point out that there are few signs that the city is carefully considering the museums’ long-term prospects, their supply of workers or how they will be run.

Indeed, conflict is already brewing with cultural groups over work on the Craftwork Museum and the Art Library in the Pyeongchang neighborhood. At the Handicraft Museum, there is friction between craftspeople representing South Korea‘s Intangible Cultural Properties and artists from the Korea Handicraft Artist Association, all of whom hope to use the facilities there as workshops and an outlet for promotion.

At the cultural complex in the Pyeongchang neighborhood, there are also signs of a disagreement over how to divvy up the operating responsibilities between the city of Seoul and the Pyeongchang Culture Forum. The forum, whose president is Lee Sun-jong, former professor at Seoul National University, is a group of cultural figures who were the first to propose building a cultural space in the area.

“Building a museum involves showcasing a new perspective on the world and on art. There should not be time constraints on the preparation, and there needs to be an open discussion about what kind of organization it should be, how it should be run and how to find the staff,” said Lee In-beom, a professor of plastic arts at Sangmyung University.

By Noh Hyung-seok, staff reporter

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