San Francisco’s Exploratorium is charting an overseas expansion, announcing on Thursday that it would open a museum in Seoul.
The museum is slated to open in 2032 as part of a partnership with the South Korea-based Hyundai Motor Group, which will house the museum at its planned new complex. Like the Embarcadero institution, the new location is also set to serve as an experimental science museum, filled with hands-on exhibits and live programming.
“The Exploratorium and Hyundai Motor Group share a commitment to cultivating the human capacities that no machine or technology can replicate: curiosity, discernment and agency,” Exploratorium Executive Director Lindsay Bierman said in a statement. “What we’re co-creating in Korea will drive progress for humanity by advancing science learning, literacy and innovation across Asia and the world.”
It’s not the Exploratorium’s first global collaboration: in the past four years, it has helped open labs and museums in Brazil, Kuwait and Omaha, Neb. But the Hyundai project represents the Exploratorium’s largest collaboration to date, the museum announced.
The new museum will be a feature of Hyundai’s planned Global Business Complex, a trio of 54-story towers in downtown Seoul planned to also include business offices, commercial areas and an urban park.
“The experiential science museum we are creating with the Exploratorium will be a unique hub for science education, delivering experiences that nurture individual curiosity and a spirit of inquiry for a better future,” Euisun Chung, executive chair of Hyundai Motor Group, said in a statement.
Anne Richardson, the Exploratorium’s chief experience officer, said the museum’s overseas collaborations aim to “enable the Exploratorium to share and adapt its inquiry-driven approach to science learning” worldwide.