Yeo Ju Museum, March 2019

Architects: Sung Wook Song + Hanul Architects

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The new history museum project aims to establish the identity of Yeo Ju city, as a distinctive landmark. The history and culture of Yeo Ju have flown along with the Namhan River and the project site located at the riverside in a cultural complex district in accordance with urban planning. Representing the history of the city, the project is planned with studying the etymology of name of the city “Yeo 驪” which means “Black horse”. Through a rigorous research of historical tales, works of literature and the realities of the terrain on site, Yeo Ju museum is designed as the tilted black stone over a water pond. With the cutting-edge design, reflective black façade corresponds with the historical myth of a black horse story and the vision of the future city. It creates a new myth, “Legendary black horses ascend to heaven as dragons”. The horizontal gap between the front floating mass and the pond provides visitors unique panoramic scenes of merging with Namhan River which is the geographical origin of the city. The building is sitting on a long rectangular site in a way to reduce the change of the original terrain to integrate with surrounding natural landscape. The site plan is intended to create a cultural hub connecting with an existing museum, women’s culture centre, and the local library. Taking the existing museum into account, the new building is located slightly aside to avoid covering the front view. The overall spatial plan is to create open hall galleries for exhibiting large-scale national treasures and giving a lively spatial experience through visually communicating with visitors’ acts in different floors. A lobby hall with a water pond café is on the first floor leading to the main exhibition space on the second floor, and administrative offices and educational seminar room are occupying on the third.