KOO HOUSE MUSEUM is a private museum founded by Jungsoon Koo, a first generation graphic designer in Korea and president of the company ‚Design Focus‘, in 2016. She presents her art collection, which consists of ca. 500 artworks, in the outer suburbs of Seoul in Gyeonggi-do.

Jungsoon Koo has been collecting artworks, furniture, design objects for almost 50 years. Her art collection comprises works by David Hockney, Katherine Bernhardt, Daniel Burren, Doho Suh, Max Ernst, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Choi Jeong Hwa, Michael Craig-Martin, Katharina Fritsch, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, William Kentridge, Tony Oursler, Paik Nam-June, James Turrell and many other artists.

The collector conceived the exhibition venue with the motto ‚Living with Art‘ and her collecting philosophy is ‚Artworks are not for possessing but for sharing‘. The building was designed by 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale Golden Lion Award-winning Architect Minsuk Cho. The artworks are placed in a home-like atmosphere so that visitors can experience the art pieces instead of just viewing them.

The museum is divided into eleven showrooms named after typical family house rooms such as the Living Room, Library, Attic in its two-story building. And there is also a special room called ‚Jean Prouvé room‘. As the name says, the room is a tribute to French architect and designer Jean Prouvé filled with his furniture in her collection and the room has an extra bathroom.

Visitors can also explore her art book collections in the ‚Library‘ sitting on a sofa and a bench designed by George Nakashima.

The collector Jungsoon Koo says, „I want visitors to get inspired by how I place the art-works in a house so that they can get encouraged to acquire artworks for themselves to enjoy them at their homes.“.

The artworks in the permanent exhibition are regularly replaced and the museum also organizes special exhibitions, in which artworks by invited artists are on view.

Text by Jiyoung Kim