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A new gallery under Seoul City Hall blends leisure and civic vision

Published: 15 Feb. 2026, 12:00

CHO JUNG-WOO
[email protected]

Exhibition Hall 1 of Seoul Gallery in the basement of the City Hall in central Seoul displays the city in miniature. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

Visitors move in and out of exhibition halls lit with digital lighting, passing glowing walls and city-themed souvenir shops. An illuminated globe stands out, with people gathered in front, watching as information on cities around the world shifts across its surface.

The scene unfolds underground, in the basement of City Hall in central Seoul, where the municipality has carved out an unexpected gathering place. On Feb. 5, the Seoul Metropolitan Government opened the Seoul Gallery, a newly renovated cultural complex spanning the first and second basement levels of the building. Part exhibition space, part civic lounge, it is designed to offer both residents and visitors a welcoming introduction to the capital and a place to linger.

The first basement floor, covering 7,357 square meters (1.8 acres), houses two major exhibition halls presenting Seoul’s present and future, along with a children’s lounge, a souvenir shop and a bookstore. The second basement level, at 2,836 square meters, is more utilitarian, featuring meeting rooms, workshop spaces and an open rest area. The meeting rooms are bookable and open for public use.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, subway commuters and gallery-goers streamed through the space. Just before Exit No. 4 of City Hall Station, the entrance to the Seoul Gallery opens onto a bright, colorful facade promoting the capital. Visitors can also enter directly from the City Hall lobby via a spiral staircase descending underground.

Visitors pass a media wall as a robot moves nearby at the entrance to the Seoul Gallery in central Seoul on Feb. 11. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

Near the entrance, a robot glides around, asking how it can help. Tap its screen and it produces a digital map of the gallery. Select a destination and the robot rolls ahead, guiding visitors through the maze-like wide space.

City in miniature

On its opening day, Wendy of the K-pop girl group Red Velvet performed to mark the launch. More than 16,000 people visited in the first five days, city officials said.

The heart of the gallery lies in its two main exhibition halls. Exhibition Hall 1 offers a bird’s-eye view of Seoul, literally. Under cool blue lighting, the city appears in miniature, scaled down to 1:1,600. The city appears in two halves, set on either side of a blue-lit walkway that represents the Han River, with northern Seoul on one side and southern Seoul on the other.

Scattered across the city map are scaled models of major municipal projects, including the Nodeul Global Art Island, a plan to transform Nodeul Island into an international arts hub. Labels are also displayed in English, alongside details about scale and scope.

A model of Nodeul Global Art Island, one of Seoul’s major future projects, is displayed in Exhibition Hall 1 of the Seoul Gallery in central Seoul on Feb. 11. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

Touchscreens allow visitors to explore the city through categories like “Policy and Vision,” “Seoul Tourism,” “Find My Area” and “Future Seoul,” with information available in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese. Nearby, a separate section features three large screens, which cycle through media art shows every 15 minutes, each offering a different portrait of the city. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the media art space will also function as a briefing space for major policy announcements by city officials.

There are moments of rest built in, too — a stepped seating area where visitors can sit and watch the displays and interactive photo zones for posing against imagined backdrops of Seoul’s future skyline.

Chasing the global top five

Exhibition Hall 2 shifts the focus outward, framing Seoul’s ambitions on a global scale. One wall compares five cities — London, New York, Tokyo, Paris and Singapore — currently ranked at the top of the Global Power City Index. Screens flicker between data points, measuring everything from environmental performance to labor competitiveness.

A media sphere displays the result of a city MBTI test at the Seoul Gallery on Feb. 11. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

At the center of the hall stands a two-meter-diameter “media sphere,” a globe controlled by a touchscreen. Visitors can explore cities around the world, check real-time weather, or take a playful “City MBTI” test, a city-themed take on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator personality test. After answering a series of personality-style questions, the system assigns users a matching city.

This reporter, categorized as a meticulous manager — ESTJ or ISTJ — was matched with Tokyo.

The test is based on four dichotomies: extroversion (E) versus introversion (I), sensing (S) versus intuition (N), thinking (T) versus feeling (F), and judging (J) versus perceiving (P).

Beyond the exhibition halls, the gallery opens into a broad communal area. The Seoul My Soul Shop sells city-branded merchandise, which is less crowded, for now, than similar stores at Dongdaemun Design Plaza. Nearby, a robot cafe uses a mechanical arm to brew coffee, served in reusable cups. A 1,000-won ($0.7) deposit is refunded when the cup is returned.

A small stage anchors the space, hosting performances or looping animated appearances by Hechi when the stage is empty.

For international travelers or residents passing through City Hall, the gallery offers a condensed introduction to Seoul and a convenient place to pause underground.

A mother and her son pose for a photo in front of a screen displaying the Eiffel Tower at the Seoul Gallery in the basement of the City Hall in central Seoul on Feb. 11. [CHO JUNG-WOO]

Foreign tourists, in particular, can learn about the space through the city’s free Tong-Tong Tour, which visits the City Hall, the Seoul Metropolitan Library and the gallery, according to a city official.

The Seoul Gallery remains open during the Seollal holiday, including Sunday, with special performances and participatory events planned. It will be closed only on Tuesday, Lunar New Year’s Day. On regular days, it operates Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. this month, with hours extending to 9 p.m. from March through October.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [[email protected]]