Oil depot-turned-cultural space provides tours for all visitors, including those with visual impairments

A music performance is held in 2019 at one of the renovated tanks at Oil Tank Culture Park in Mapo-gu, Seoul. (Oil Tank Culture Park)

Located to the west of Seoul World Cup Stadium in Mapo-gu, Seoul, Oil Tank Culture Park is a cultural complex created in a transformation from an oil depot. The cultural complex provides a wide range of cultural events, welcoming locals and tourists alike, along with features catering to those with visual impairments.

Oil Tank Culture Park said earlier this week that it started a pilot tour program for people who are blind or have a visual impairment. The new program is designed to introduce architecture within the cultural space through on-site audio guides and travel guides who will help the visually impaired enjoy a hands-on experience around the renovated oil tanks with their original features preserved.

The cultural complex said the pilot program will be open four times in November. The program currently takes applicants only through designated welfare institutions for the visually handicapped.

After November, Oil Tank Culture Park will temporarily stop holding the tour guides and make supplements for the program’s official launch in 2023.

In addition to tours for the visually impaired, Oil Tank Culture Park also provides audio guides for visitors in Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese.

There are also three exhibitions being held at the cultural complex in November: “Time Walking on Memory,” “Hermaphroditus Protrusion Mythology Dabal Kim ‘Dreaming Club’” and "Court of Intergenerational Climate Crime in Seoul: Law in Court." Both audio guides and booklets are provided in Korean and English.

A renovated oil tank is illuminated at night with projection mapping, as part of a 2021 project at the Oil Tank Culture Park in Mapo-gu, Seoul. (Oil Tank Culture Park)

According to Oil Tank Culture Park, classes, outdoor activities and family-friendly activities are available throughout the year.

The schedule for activities at the cultural complex is available via its Naver blog page. Bookings for some of the events can be also made on the Seoul Public Service Reservation website.

Oil Tank Culture Park was previously an oil depot. The oil depot was built in 1976 after the oil crisis in the early 1970s, as part of a state-led attempt to counter a future oil crisis. The depot had five oil tanks that were able to hold 69 million liters of gasoline and diesel in total.

The depot, however, was closed in 2000 in line with the country’s co-hosting of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. After that, the oil depot sat idle for more than a decade.

In 2015 renovation of the old oil depot started. After two years, the oil depot was re-created into a cultural space and opened to the public.

The new cultural complex now has six tanks, with five renovated tanks and a tank built using materials left out of the renovation process. Only one of the existing five tanks has been preserved for its historicity, while others were remodeled to be used as cultural spaces.

Inside and outside the tanks, different cultural events, including performances, music festivals, circuses and art workshops, are held throughout the year, according to Oil Tank Culture Park.

By Shim Woo-hyun(ws@heraldcorp.com)