Work of museum designers honored

Top, A bird’s-eye view of Chang Ucchin Museum. Chae Pereira Architects won the Kim Swoo Geun Prize for Architecture for the newly-opened museum. Above, the museum’s interior. Provided by Kim Swoo Geun Foundation

Chae-Pereira Architect won the 22nd Kim Swoo Geun Architecture Prize for Chang Ucchin Museum in Yangju city of Gangwon province.

The Seoul-based team of Korean architect Chae Songhee and Belgian architect Laurent Pereira designed the museum, which opened last month to commemorate Chang Ucchin (1917-90), a modern Korean painter.

The museum, built on a site of 6,204 square meters, has two stories above ground and one story underground, whose total area reach 1,851 square meters.

Its exterior and spaces have restful ambience and make harmony with the surrounding nature, in accordance with the aesthetics of Chang, who made cheerful half-representational, half-abstract paintings in which humans play with nature like trees, birds and the sun and the moon.

Kim Swoo Geun Foundation has been granting the prize annually since 1990 in memory of Kim (1931-86), one of the most important modern Korean architects.

This year’s award ceremony will be held on June 14 at Arko Art Center in central Seoul.

By MOON SO-YOUNG [symoon@joongang.co.kr]