WONJU, SOUTH KOREA –
Perched high in the mountains of Wonju, South Korea, Museum SAN is a choreographed journey of art and architecture. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the museum — its name an acronym for “space, art and nature” — is an evolving collaboration that continues to unfold more than a decade after its opening.
Conceived with the museum’s founder, the late Lee In-hee, Museum SAN opened in 2013 and has since grown into one of South Korea’s largest private art museums, welcoming more than 300,000 visitors annually. Its program spans traditional Korean art and international contemporary works, but it is Ando’s architecture — austere, meditative and shaped by the surrounding landscape — that gives the institution its distinctive identity.
Unlike most architects who step away once a building is complete, Ando has remained involved, adding three major external structures over time: Meditation Hall (2018), Space of Light (2023) and, most recently, “Ground” (2025), an underground installation codesigned with British sculptor Antony Gormley. According to the museum’s director, Ahn Young-joo, Ando is already at work on another project for the site, still in its early drawing stages, with details under wraps.