Investing 126 billion won to build a publicly accessible storage facility on the former site of the Intelligence Command in Seocho by 2028

The inside of the world’s largest art depot accessible to the public, Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Last year, Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the museum during a business trip to the Netherlands and came to introduce such a publicly accessible storage facility in Seoul. Boijmans Van Beuningen website (https://www.boijmans.nl)

By 2028, a storage facility visible to the public in the form of an art museum will be constructed on the former site of the Intelligence Command in Seocho-gu, Seoul. It will be the first publicly accessible art depot in Korea, disclosing not only the works stored, but also the restoration process of artworks.

On September 12, the Seoul metropolitan government announced that the city would invest 126 billion won to build a storage facility with a total building floor area of 19,500m2 and land area of 5,800m2 in the “Seoripul special planning zone” in block 1005-6, Seocho-dong. The zone covers over 97,000m2 of land, and the city is currently developing the area for business and commercial facilities. The city plans to build the art depot through a contributed-acceptance method: a private company will build the storage facility--including the land and building--and donate it to the city to take advantage of incentives in the floor space index, etc.

Tuesday, an agreement on the project was signed by Kim Eui-seung, first vice mayor of Seoul for administrative affairs; Jun Sung-soo, district mayor of Seocho-gu; and Yi Dong-jun, CEO of SBC PFV Co. Ltd., the business provider.

The city plans to display up to 100,000 items from crafts to sculptures, paintings, artifacts and relics, including all eras and genres in the storage facility, which is scheduled to be completed by 2028.

Currently, Seoul has 450,000 cultural and arts assets in its possession in the Seoul Museum of History, the Seoul Museum of Art, the Seoul Museum of Craft Art and the Seoul Hanseong Baekje Museum. However, due to the lack of exhibition space and the limited exhibition themes, the city has only been able to disclose 5% of the items to the public.

A representative of the Seoul metropolitan government explained, “In the new facility, we plan to actively disclose items with high academic and aesthetic value that were not displayed because permanent and special exhibits were composed of items centered on particular themes.”

In addition to general exhibitions, the city aims to increase the rate of items disclosed to the public up to 30% by building indoor facilities with glass windows and offering guided tours and hands-on activities. The city will allow the public to enjoy the facility in a variety of ways by creating a route indoors, so people can see the area for the conservation treatment and analysis of stored items as well as other workrooms.

Seoul will also seek an innovative design for the storage facility building through an international architecture competition, so that the building itself could also become a cultural content with artistic value. This will be the first time that the architectural design for a facility by a private business subject to the contributed-acceptance method will be determined through an international competition.

Seven architects from South Korea and overseas including the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, Foster and Partners (U.K.) and Herzog & de Meuron (Switzerland) have been invited to take part in the competition. MVRDV, which designed Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the world’s largest publicly accessible art depot, and architects Cho Min-suk, Lim Jae-yong, and Yoo Hyun-joon will also take part in the competition.

The city plans to stream the judging process of the architecture competition by the six judges live on YouTube, allowing the citizens to view the entire process.