Seosomun Shrine History Museum

About this place

Seosomun Shrine History Museum occupies the underground of a 21,000-square-metre park on the site of the former Seosomun execution ground, one of the principal sites where Catholic martyrs were killed during the Joseon dynasty's persecution of Christianity between the 17th and 19th centuries. An estimated 44 of Korea's 103 canonised Catholic saints were executed here. The site is one of the most significant Catholic pilgrimage sites in East Asia. The museum was designed collaboratively by three Seoul-based practices — Interkerd Architects (led by Yoon Seunghyun), Void Architects (led by Lee Ku-sang), and Less Architects — and completed in 2019. The collaboration produced a building of unusual spatial coherence despite its complex authorship. The design strategy is to keep the park above ground as undivided open space, with the museum entirely below grade. The underground volume is announced at street level by a narrow slot in the paving and a series of rising concrete walls that frame views of sky and indicate the presence of something below without describing it. The descent is gradual and prepared — a long ramp sequences the transition from city to sacred space over a considerable distance before the main hall is revealed. Inside, the primary architectural gesture is the manipulation of natural light through narrow vertical openings cut through the ground plane above. The effect in the main hall is of light as a near-physical presence — columns of light arriving from the ceiling, shifting with the time of day, falling across dark stone surfaces and water. The spatial experience is designed to produce silence and slowing without recourse to conventional religious symbolism; the building, as Yoon Seunghyun has described it, aims for a sacredness that transcends any single religion. The museum was awarded the 2019 Seoul Architecture Award and has been widely published internationally as one of the most significant Korean buildings of the decade. It is located a short walk from Seoul City Hall and Deoksugung Palace.