Exit Strategy connects two means of egress on the ground floor of Art Sonje Center with a straight single-loaded corridor. The 15-meter long corridor, running through the space at an angle (40°) that is foreign to the quadrant plan of the museum, divides and connects five different programs with the minimum amount of construction. The width of the corridor (180cm) is the same as the width of the sliding glass doors, thus extending the public passage across the entire gallery toward the rear exit. Inside the corridor, the perspectival view toward the exit is interrupted by three thresholds marked by white luminous volumes, which also hide cross-bracing structures inside. This new corridor named Exit Strategy temporarily halts the demolition process of the ground floor, but does not tamper the vigorous ambience of a construction site and conveys that the transformation of Art Sonje Center is in fact on-going.

Choon Choi is an architect based in Seoul. He has collaborated with curators to design exhibition spaces for Gwangju Biennale (Okwui Enwezor), Seoul Media Art Biennale (Sunjung Kim), and with artists Kim Beom and Kim Sora for the Sangha Farm Project and Asteroid G. He has independently participated in group exhibitions such as Platform in KIMUSA(2009) at the old site of the Defense Security Command(DSC), PLAYTIME(2014) at Seoul Station, and Brilliant Collaborators(2013) at Ilmin Museum. Choi’s representative built projects include Jeomchon Middle School, Ggummaru at the Children’s Grand Park, and Martec Factory, and he has also presented blueprints for the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Forest Church, and Gallery Swales, which have been introduced in various publications. Current projects in progress include Sangha Farm and Maeil Dairies Research Laboratory. He studied architecture and set design at Berkeley and Harvard, and established his practice in Seoul in 2007. He is currently a professor of architectural design at Seoul National University.

+Art Sonje  Space Project

Art Sonje Center initiates its Art Sonje Space Project with an agenda to transform various corners of the museum through artistic interventions. This project explores not only the potential of architecture that would grant the museum’s public space a new identity, but the interrelationship between art and architecture. As its very first Art Sonje Space Project, Art Sonje Center invited Choon Choi to newly design the ground floor of the museum, under the project name Exit Strategy. Markus Miessen, a German architect, undertakes the second project and presents a temporary structure that connects the entrance of the museum with the streets.