Seoul Design Story: A Retrospective of Landscape Architect Jung Youngsun
I managed to visit the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) during my travel to Seoul this summer. The visit also coincides with Frieze Art Week and the Korea Art Festival.
Tip: Admission to this museum is free throughout the Art Week.
EXHIBITION
Jung Youngsun: For All That Breathes On Earth
One of the most memorable exhibitions during my trip to Seoul is at the MMCA, Seoul. It was a retrospective of Korea’s first female landscape architect, Jung Youngsun. The exhibition aims to capture stories from her life and 50 years of work transforming South Korea’s landscape and architecture.
The exhibition won the coveted 2024 Red Dot Design's Best of the Best award in the Brand and Communication category.
A Spatially Compact Yet Impactful Exhibition.
The exhibition is held at Gallery 7 of the museum and includes an outdoor space where the architect has turned the indoor courtyard into a garden. Visitors can enter the garden before or after the exhibition.
The title wall is in the corridor leading to the gallery. It is a long hallway with the garden on one side and a title wall on the other side.
The main gallery space is divided into 3 sections: a timeline of work along the 3 walls, selected exhibitions with digital media at the space near the entrance, and a display of drawings and research materials on the space by the exit. When visitor exits the gallery, they are greeted by a long hallway with a detailed timeline of the architect’s career.
Immersive Walls of Career Highlights
When visitors enter the gallery space, they are greeted by two main visuals: large photographs on the walls and a collection of digital media displays on the floor. There is no specific order to view the exhibition, and this was intentional.
“...minimal divisions with loose boundaries allow the viewer to discover the context of each project on their own from where they happen to stand.”
The more intuitive way for me was to start at the wall displays. And that’s what I did. The floor displays seem more free-flowing, so I think I gravitated more to the easier ones to view: the walls.
This long wall display highlights the architect’s career. Some iconic landscapes and architecture in the country were shown on the walls in the form of large photographs and drawings. There was a suspended table case display to accompany the wall displays. In these cases were more drawings, blueprints, and 3d models, giving more context to the photographs on the wall.
Going through these walls also feels like going through a bucket list of places in S. Korea for nature and architecture lovers. Most of these locations are public places designed specifically to co-exist with the natural geography of the place and to complement the needs of the community.
A sculptural floor display of prints, illustrations, and video.
Facing the wall display is a large floor display of multimedia work ranging from prints, drawings, videos, and sounds. At first glance, the entire display looks like a large, glass multimedia sculpture.
The floor display is made up of smaller display units. Each unit is a project and consists of a combination of video and print displayed on the floor at varying heights. Each unit is immersive in its unique way, some of them showed the design process and the final outcome: the landscape architecture through the different seasons, while others showed a before-after comparison of the geography and architecture.
Visitors are encouraged to walk around the large display and stop as and when something catches their attention. The addition of videos and interviews made this experience a dynamic one that si full of discovery. Even though the exhibition does not have a large footprint, a visitor can easily spend hours in it just to experience each project to the fullest.
“As if walking through a naturalistic garden, the exhibition design intends to stimulate chance encounters and embrace themes that are mutual and inclusive.”
