Taerim Misulgwan, Art museum in Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Taerim Misulgwan is a contemporary art museum at 21 Jahamun-ro 4-gil in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Its two-storey building, 470 m² in area, dates from 1967 and was converted into exhibition space by French architects Vincent Cornu and Jean-Paul Midant. The facade carries stained glass inspired by Korean bojagi wrapping cloths, and a fourth-floor balcony looks out to Inwangsan and Bukhansan.
The museum grew out of the Hallim Gallery, opened by the Daelim Group in Daejeon in August 1993; in 1996 the Hallim Cultural Center became the Daelim Cultural Foundation and the gallery was renamed Hallim Museum, which in 1997 became Korea's first photography museum. It moved to Seoul on 29 May 2002, taking the name Daelim Museum in a 1967 house in Tongui-dong rebuilt by French architects Vincent Cornu and Jean Paul Mida.
The museum's guiding idea is "the artification of everyday life": exhibitions re-examine the value of ordinary objects rather than paintings. Its programme consists of temporary photography shows, including retrospectives of Linda McCartney (2014–2015) and Ryan McGinley (2013–2014), and a 2012 exhibition of Danish designer Finn Juhl's Scandinavian furniture. The café next door, Misulgwan Yeopjip, keeps the interior decoration and garden of the old detached house.
The museum sits at 21 Jahamun-ro 4-gil in Tongui-dong, Jongno-gu, a short walk from Gyeongbokgung Station on Line 3 via exits 3 and 4. It closes on Mondays and over the Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays, and stays open until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. Strollers are not admitted, and a mobile audio guide runs through the museum's app.
The building's front facade is decorated with stained glass inspired by traditional Korean wrapping cloths (bojagi). The fourth-floor balcony looks out to Inwangsan and, farther off, Bukhansan.
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