LG Arts Center Seoul (LG아트센터 서울)

The LG Arts Center Seoul (LG아트센터 서울) is the venue that the LG Arts Center, a non-profit performing arts centre funded by the LG Group and run by the LG Yonam Culture Foundation (LG연암문화재단), opened in October 2022 in Magok-dong (마곡동), in Gangseo-gu (강서구). Until then the centre had occupied another building, in Yeoksam-dong (역삼동), Gangnam-gu (강남구), from March 2000 to February 2022.

The new building stands on the grounds of Seoul Botanic Park (서울식물원). It was built as a public-benefit facility during the development of LG Science Park in Magok, then handed over to the City of Seoul, with the LG Yonam Culture Foundation keeping the right to operate it for twenty years.

Tadao Ando designed it with the Korean firm Gansam (간삼건축종합건축사사무소). In 2023 the building won the Grand Prize of the 41st Seoul Architecture Award, for a design credited to both firms. The jury notably praised its public character: the building connects to the botanic garden's plaza, to the neighbouring street and to the metro station.

The building has three storeys below ground and four above, with a total floor area of about 40,000 m2, twice that of the former centre in Gangnam. Bare concrete and glass go together here.

Ando organised it around three ideas. The Tube is a passage 80 m long and 10 m high that cuts diagonally through the ground level: to the east, the performance hall, rehearsal rooms and teaching spaces; to the west, the LG Discovery Lab, a space devoted to science. It links the botanic garden to LG Science Park and draws people from outside into the building. Inside, aluminium slats faced with wood veneer give it a warm atmosphere.

The Step Atrium is a 100 m staircase that climbs from Magongnaru station (마곡나루), underground, to the second floor, towards the main lobby and the auditorium. Where the Tube links horizontally, it links the basement to the upper levels vertically. The Gate Arc is the curved wall met in the lobby: of bare concrete, 70 m long and 20 m high, it serves as a symbolic gate to the halls.

Ando says he wanted a hall "found nowhere else": the lobby, the atrium and the passages each have a distinct character, and he counts on the crossing of these spaces to produce "a fresh stimulus".

The LG SIGNATURE Hall is a multi-purpose hall of 1,335 seats on three levels (742, 315 and 278); the balconies of the two upper levels are curved, as if to wrap around the stage. The proscenium opening varies from 12 to 20 m wide and from 8 to 12 m high, and the reverberation can be adjusted from 1.2 to 1.85 seconds. The whole hall is built as a "box in a box" to shut out the noise of the metro, helicopters and aircraft. The U+ Stage is a flexible black box of up to 365 seats on two levels, with a double wall against noise.

The LG SIGNATURE Hall hosts orchestra, opera, musicals, theatre, ballet and concerts. At the U+ Stage, the seating can be arranged as an end stage, arena, traverse, thrust or an empty floor; it is used for theatre, dance and jazz, and for conferences. The building also has two rehearsal rooms, one of them large enough to rehearse an orchestra, a musical or an opera.

On the first floor, the Art Lounge is a small exhibition and rest space lit by a skylight, from which the bare concrete wall of the Tube can also be seen. It shows Ando's plans, proposals, model and sketches for the building. A rooftop terrace gives a view over the city.

Artworks are installed in the building: Meadow, by the Dutch group Studio Drift, twenty objects at the top of the entrance stairs whose movement evokes flowers opening; in the Tube, Fog Cannon by the British group A.A. MURAKAMI (Studio Swine), which fires doughnut-shaped fog rings from eight cannons; outside, ARK 23.5, a large media-art installation inspired by the 23.5-degree tilt of the Earth's axis.

The building is open every day from 10 am to 11 pm. An architecture audio tour, open to all, is followed on your own, in any order, at eight points (Step Atrium, Gate Arc, Tube, halls, Art Lounge, rooftop terrace...); bring your own earphones. The rooftop terrace is open only from 10 am to 6 pm, except on Mondays. Performances can be booked online, by telephone or at the box office.

The easiest way is to arrive at Magongnaru station: the AREX line exits connect to the building by an underground passage, and Line 9 is four minutes' walk away. Parking is cramped and always full; the centre recommends public transport.