SASAEK – HORIZONS // Franklin Azzi Architecture

Text description provided by the architects.

Inspired by the beauty of the site, tucked into the slope of the mountain, we wanted to create a museum that becomes part of the poetry of its environment, a reflection of the powerful link that has always existed between Korean literature and nature.

We have imagined a place that is welcoming, flexible and harmonious, unified with the vegetation, the rock, water and mountains.

It is a ‘continuum’, a bridge between time and space, nature and learning.
The National Museum of Korean Literature, which we propose naming Sasaek, thereby invites visitors on a voyage through the garden of four seasons and shared ideas. Its planted roof forms a footbridge on a hiking trail, linking mountainside and valley.

Tucked away into the rock and reflected in the mirror of water at the center of its internal courtyard, the museum melts into a site propitious to strolling, contemplation and reflection.

Echoing the exterior promenades, we have imagined fluidity for the interior, placing the emphasis on the circulation through the different spaces, which can be adjusted to allow for a variety of arrangements according to activity.

A sustainable place, thanks to its infrastructure, the building provides cooling in the summer and heat in the winter, benefitting from a continuous natural water flow and indigenous and harmonious vegetation.

Our ambition was to create a museum ‘capable’ of ensuring its primary roles (collecting, conserving, restoring) and to fulfil its vocation of relating the individual to the collective while contributing to the enhancement of a shared heritage and knowledge for all.

Making the link between past and present, Saesek works as a museum–footbridge, at one with literature, history, architecture and nature.

It is seen as a place symbolising the multiple sources of inspiration, reflection and sharing, concerned and respectful for the users and their environment..

SASAEK – HORIZONS Gallery