Lock Museum

Daehakro, meaning university road, where this building belongs to, was the traditional habitation of the Joseon period, and, was also where numerous talented leaders of Korea were developed, as Seoul National University used is as its campus. After the university moved out in 1975, this area was sold to individuals in 330 square units, and had visions about a beautiful residential unit by attracting cultural facilities. However, the storm of economic development that soon followed put this area into a wild whirlpool. The price of the land, which increased tenfold every year, could not help to keep this area as a residential one, and being changed into entertainment and commercial facilities, the houses had their functions changed into shops. The galleries and bookstores had to leave, not being able to bear the pricey rent. The wholesome buildings turned in a day into a Mexican-styled one or Gaudi-styled structure or brought in the Magic Castle of Disney Land. The area became a place of congested, low, mercantile hegemony, finally leading to a loss of ethics for the city.

This building is located on the edge of the road. Because this land was originally outside the old campus of Seoul National University, it was only on the periphery of the so-called influential range of Daehakro. Also, the area behind this part of the land is still filled with inferior residential units and, therefore is definitely on the urban border. Just above it is the Naksan, a form of the traditional topography that shaped Seoul, where old and inferior apartments have been recently evacuated to develop a park.

The given area was small, and the program itself was to have a volume of twice the size of the area. The client is a modern master craftsman, who has been creating architectural hardware of a high standard for a long time; and he, suitably for his work, had collected an immense number of locks and keys, which he wished to form a lock museum with, to fill in this architecture. Apart from this museum, which will be the only one of its kind in Korea, a space for the client’s habitation and events, and a restaurant and designing shop to provide for the maintenance of the building are included in this architectural program.

To introduce some weight was highly needed to this dense area where buildings of so many numbers of styles, the confusing signboards, the electric cables and telegraph poles overhead are not offering one bit of feeling of stability. The simpler it is, the more acutely the weight will be felt. No windows, no adornments, but only the weight of the metal will be there. It is a negative void to create tension in this brawling scenery. But inside it there is much brightness.