Nowon District Office Unexpectedly Transforms into a 'Gallery' That Brings Happiness

From May, Various Emotion-Stimulating Exhibitions Including Retro, Automata, and Figures
Seoul City Architecture Award Public Sector Winner's District Office Lobby Shines Again as a Gallery
Bringing Culture and Arts One Step Closer to Residents' Daily Lives

Upcoming Exhibition Items - Retro Memories of the 70s and 80s

Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that from May 3rd, the lobby of the Nowon-gu Office building will be renovated and operated as an office gallery that stimulates emotions.

This is to enhance the image of Nowon-gu as a cultural city and to provide small moments of happiness to residents visiting the district office.

Using the lobbies on the 1st and 2nd floors of the district office, a variety of exhibition themes will be presented to residents. The first exhibition starting in May, titled "Nostalgic Retro," will evoke the nostalgia of the 70s and 80s, featuring props such as old textbooks, stamps, and turntables that are now hard to find, leading visitors on a journey through time.

During the exhibition period, from 1 PM to 2 PM daily, old pop and Korean songs from the past will play in the exhibition hall to enhance the atmosphere. Visitors can also enjoy photo zones, arcades, and experience viewing facsimiles of magazines and comic books from that era. Twenty residents who share their visit on personal SNS will be given the opportunity to participate in a plastic model-making experience.

From June to July, various "comic and animation figures" from around the world, including Snoopy and Geomjeong Gomusin, will be gathered in one place.

There will also be unique and unforgettable exhibitions such as "Automata," handcrafted wooden mechanical sculptures that move on their own, and "Scratchboard Print Exhibitions," which create distinctive visual effects through delicate line work and strong contrasts of light and shadow.

Additionally, exhibitions that will excite children and kidults alike, such as "ultra-precision plastic models" and premium "Hot Toys" die-cast robot figures, are planned to be continuously organized until the end of the year, catering to various generations and tastes.

The Nowon-gu Office lobby, newly transformed into an office gallery, is a beloved healing space for residents that took two years from design to construction. The 1st-floor lobby features an expanded ceiling height, an open bookshelf with over 2,500 books, a stylishly designed book caf?, and an indoor flower bed, functioning as a complex cultural space within the otherwise barren district office building. This space, which won the 2023 Seoul City Architecture Award in the public category for its artistic sensibility, is expected by district officials to become a unique landmark that brings unexpected happiness to district office employees and visitors once it is transformed into a gallery.

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, "In addition to professional performance venues such as the Nowon Culture and Arts Center, we have worked to add cultural colors to places frequented by residents, such as Danghyeonbit-gil, Gyeongchun Line Open Gallery, and Suraksan Station Complex Cultural Space," adding, "We will successfully prepare the office gallery to raise the brand value of the city as a cultural city where everyday life becomes art."