Jeongok Prehistory Museum

Project Description

On the river side, in a winding landscape, a bridge stretched between two cliffs, a threshold, a bridge spanning a precipice, …

We wished to honour the riverside landscape which saw the birth of the first inhabitants of Korea, and acknowledge the beauty of the two hill curves echoing the river meanders. How to enhance such a pre-existent form and its geological underground chasm :

• by digging the chasm to let the Earth tell its history
• by alleviating the visual hold of the project in order to let the chasm express itself
• for this purpose, the building will be enchased into the hill which has been hollowed out and the stockrooms will be located underground
• by curving the central part of the building so as to unveil the geological crack (and also the sun, from the edge of the crack)
• by clothing it in a „shimmering skin“ which will reflect the precipice from underneath

Thus set up, the project appears like a bridge stretched between two cliffs which can be seen from a long distance from the motorway.
The precipice as a natural threshold and the emotion it induces, will be used to realize a symbolic threshold into the „prehistoric era“ which will also give access to the „Prehistoric Park“.

Then we create paths, many paths around the curves of the project and of the cliffs, because the paths which were made by the animals going down to the river to drink, belonged to the „first human beings“ landscape.