Kim Hyundae, Professor at Ewha Womans University, Wins 2025 Red Dot Design Award N
- Date2025.12.10
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National Museum of Korea’s Oegyujanggak Uigwe Gallery Honored with One of the World’s Top Three Design Awards
The Oegyujanggak Uigwe Gallery at the National Museum of Korea, designed by Professor Kim Hyundae of the Department of Architecture at Ewha Womans University, has won a main award in the “Red Dot Design Award: Brands & Communication Design 2025,” one of the world’s most prestigious design honors.
Hosted by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany, the Red Dot Design Award is recognized as one of the world’s three major design awards, alongside Germany’s iF Design Award and the United States’ IDEA Award. This achievement reaffirms the international competitiveness of Korean exhibition design and highlights the global standing of Ewha Womans University’s research and creative work in the fields of design and architecture.
The Oegyujanggak Uigwe Gallery is a dedicated exhibition space that reinterprets, through a contemporary lens, the royal uigwe—illustrated records documenting major state rites and ceremonies of the Joseon Dynasty. The gallery received high praise for its spatial composition and circulation design, which allow visitors to feel as though they are stepping into a royal archive. The harmonious integration of digital archives, graphic information design, lighting, materials, and spatial organization has been noted as a successful example of translating the dignity of historical records into a modern design language.
In particular, the exhibition system was restructured using illustrations, interactive information, and digitally restored materials so that visitors can intuitively grasp the cultural and artistic value of the uigwe even without the ability to read classical Chinese texts.
Professor Kim played a central role in the spatial planning and design, ensuring that the exhibition goes beyond the simple display of artifacts to create an organic structure in which “record, information, experience, and memory” are seamlessly connected. At the entrance, an image inspired by the original cover of the uigwe symbolizes the journey of these records and enhances visitor immersion. In the main exhibition areas, the scale and atmosphere of the original Oegyujanggak are reflected through the display of both unique copies and royal reference editions, reimagining the “royal library” as a contemporary exhibition space.
This award is widely regarded as a meaningful milestone, recognizing once again the exhibition design capabilities of the National Museum of Korea—one of the central institutions of K-culture—on the international stage, while also demonstrating how the creative research achievements of Ewha Womans University in architecture and design are extending their influence globally.
Professor Kim Hyundae is known for his focus on “Transdisciplinary Tectonics in Transition,” exploring formal correlations that transcend the boundaries of architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture. His work is particularly noted for harmonizing tradition and modernity while respecting the memory of place. He has received numerous major domestic and international awards, including the International Architecture Awards (2018, 2024), the iF Design Award (2021), the Korea Architecture Culture Award (2022), and the Golden Scale Best Award (2012, 2022, 2024).