SOMA Museum of Art, Art gallery in Oryun-dong, Seoul, South Korea
SOMA Museum of Art is an art gallery in the Oryun-dong neighborhood of Seoul, set within Olympic Park. The building has straight lines and large windows, and inside the galleries are open and well-lit, giving each work room to be seen on its own.
The museum opened in 2004 on land that had been part of the grounds prepared for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The area around it was already used for outdoor sculptures before a permanent building was added.
The museum sits inside Olympic Park, so many people combine a visit with a walk through the outdoor grounds. The open-air sculpture park attached to the museum draws people who simply wander through without entering the building itself.
The museum is inside Olympic Park, so it helps to allow extra time to walk through the grounds before or after your visit. It is well served by public transit, with subway stations and bus stops close by.
The building and its landscaping were designed by architect Cho Sung-ryong and Seo An-jogyo, a landscape firm. The museum began as the outdoor sculpture park laid out when Olympic Park opened in 1988, was registered as a museum in 1998, and opened under the name Seoul Olympic Art Museum in January 2004. It took the name SOMA in 2006 from the English initials of that earlier title.
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