The Samcheong-ro Entrance and Museum Sign
Mihn Hyun-jun and mp_art architects · 2013
The museum's front door is on Samcheong-ro, the street that runs north along the east wall of Gyeongbokgung towards the galleries and cafes of Samcheong-dong. A long low wall of grey terracotta tiles carries the museum's name in Korean and English and its logo of four letters stacked in a square, and a glass pavilion set back from the pavement leads into the lobby. The entrance is deliberately understated; the museum wanted to be a neighbour rather than a monument on one of the most historic streets in the city.
Look at the tiles themselves. They are rough textured and slightly uneven in colour, laid so that the wall reads as a woven surface, and their tone was chosen to sit between the granite of the palace wall across the road and the red brick of the old military building behind. The lettering is cut into a dark panel and lit at night. Inside the pavilion, a wide stair and lifts drop to the ticket hall, the bookshop and Seoul Box; the sequence from busy street to quiet courtyard takes under a minute.
The entrance is also the best place to understand where you are. To the south lies Gwanghwamun and the great square; to the west, beyond the palace wall, the throne halls of Gyeongbokgung; to the north and east, the low tiled roofs of Bukchon Hanok Village and the Blue House, the former presidential residence, now open to the public. The museum is the modern piece in that patchwork, and the plain sign on the wall is where the patchwork begins.
Did You Know? The four letter logo is designed to read the same way in Korean and English and appears on all four branches of the museum, from Gwacheon to Cheongju.
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