Korean Pavilion constructed as the last national pavilion located in Giardini di Castello since 1995, has a rather small space of 200 square meters divided into complicated segments with circular, rectangular, and twisted partitions. Such incongruent spaces are unified with transparent glass walls through which the inside confronts with the outside. To make use of the specific architectural condition, recent commissioners of Korean pavilion have opened the given space up to the outer environments to make the entire exhibition space look rich and spacious.
The 2007 exhibition, however, switches over to a simple and concentrated space, completely isolated from nature. The resulted artificial space consists of two opposite black and white domains, staged as the emblematic places of human intelligence: natural history museum and medical laboratory, one for preserving the past and the other for predicting the future. This strategic choice makes it possible for the audiences, who unwittingly have encounters with nature between several national pavilions in the Giardini park, to refresh themselves and to fully appreciate the artworks' presence through the uncanny and unnatural space.
Impressive artificial lightning, strictly coordinated to exclude unnecessary and conflicting elements from the audiences' view and to spotlight the artworks, is another factor to make the exhibition space coherent and effective. Beyond reality into the past and the future, Korean pavilion would provide a virtual time travel in Venice.
Click to see the plan