Nam June Paik Museum Korea : Architecture Information

Nam June Paik Museum, Yong-In, Kyonggi Province, Republic of Korea 2003 Gottesman–Szmelcman Architecture Open international Architecture competition, Aug 2003 Design of a Video, Media & Digital Arts Museum Named after the American Korean Artist, Nam June Paik It is a daunting challenge to design a museum for a living artist, especially for an artist who has consistently challenged the boundaries of both what may be utilized within the domain of Art and the technical means by which artistic notions are conveyed. Nam June Paik's affinity to music, video, digital information, real-time communications, lasers and the spectrum of hardware components require the proposed museum to not only serve as a repository of existing works, but also to stimulate new creations. Thresholds have been incorporated wherever possible, bridging and extending the experience between one type of space and another. Visitors are both spectators and actors within the vibrancy of the museum. Their passage may trigger interactions that underline the reciprocal relation between viewer and space, between the artist and the spectator. Whether visitors enter from the top or the bottom. The prominence of "immaterial art" in the form of video, digital imaging, music and lasers offers a particular opportunity to integrate the experiences of nature and art. We have not attempted in our proposal to camouflage visually the museum within the surrounding landscape. It is our belief that the underlined contrast between the natural and the artificial, the real and the virtual, the pastoral and the dynamic act as complementary reinforcement to their contrasting attributes. We view the museum as a generator of culture and as the cultural manifestation of contemporary media and communication. Industrial mechanisms, technology, imaging, communications, form and space are among the components that formulate our vision of the Nam June Paik Museum. Nam June Paik Museum images / information received 130309