INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA
The design for our proposal “An Ecology of Knowledge and Culture” was inspired by the Korean landscape spanning from the Mountains to the Sea. The proposed landscape reveals the complex and diverse ecotonal landscapes that exist within the Korean Peninsula. It also mediates between repositories for three distinct forms of information – the library (recorded information), the museum (cultural objects embedded with information), and the landscape (biological information), allowing residents to engage with Incheon Geomdan’s intellectual, historical, and biological history. The proposal, in collaboration with Strange Works Studio and Emergent Studio,
Incheon’s Metropolitan City Municipality and its Housing & City Development Corporation sought to construct a cultural complex integrating museum and library programming as a cultural landmark for the Geomdan New Town in the outskirts of Seoul’s metropolitan expansion in South Korea. “An Ecology of Knowledge and Culture” establishes a museum to exhibit excavated historical relics of the region, as well as the construction of a new public library to address the expansion of its collection. The site of this new cultural complex is located at the corner of a large public park lake which serves as a critical ecological access point to the adjacent historical mountain ranges of the region. Through the synergy of library, museum & landscape, “An Ecology of Knowledge and Culture” creates a cultural landmark in which knowledge, history, people, technology, and environment are harmonized by merging material culture (museum) and archival culture (library) representative of Incheon’s regional culture and ecologies. In collaboration with Strange Works Studio and Emergent Studio.