Janghwan Lee, CEO of Urban Operations, Appointed Artistic Director of the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

"Disappearing Cities, Accumulating Architecture" as the Main Theme

Proposing Korean Architectural and Urban Models for the Era of Super-Shrinkage

Janghwan Lee, CEO of Urban Operations, has been selected as the artistic director for the Korean Pavilion at the 20th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition in 2027.

Janghwan Lee, CEO of Urban Operations, has been appointed as the artistic director of the Korean Pavilion for the 20th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2027 Venice Biennale. Korean Culture and Arts Committee

On May 28, the Korean Culture and Arts Committee announced that Lee had been chosen as the artistic director to oversee the Korean Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition in 2027.

The Arts Council Korea held an open call for artistic director candidates from January 7 to February 9 this year. Since the inception of the open call for the Korean Pavilion artistic director, this year saw the most submissions ever, with 20 individuals and teams presenting exhibition proposals. The selection committee conducted a first-round document review, then shortlisted five individuals and teams for the second-round interviews, ultimately appointing Lee as the artistic director for the Korean Pavilion.

Lee is an architect who has worked broadly across urban, cultural, and architectural fields. He was previously with OMA in the Netherlands, where he participated in the design of the Qatar National Library and worked on various projects across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He also co-runs the research group "Small and Medium Cities Forum" with Sanghyun Lee, which observes changes outside major metropolitan areas and explores new possibilities.

The curatorial proposal for the Korean Pavilion is provisionally titled "Disappearing Cities, Accumulating Architecture." The exhibition will highlight Korea's phenomenon of "super-shrinkage" in the context of global trends of population decline and aging. In particular, it interprets the urban and architectural changes seen in provincial small and medium-sized cities not as signs of decline, but as new adaptive forms that emerge when the momentum for growth is set aside and disappearance is embraced.

The exhibition will be structured around two main pillars: research on the current state of Korea's small and medium-sized cities, and proposals for new architectural and urban models. By examining the vacant spaces left behind in these shrinking provincial cities and the phenomenon of temporary materials being layered onto aging houses, the exhibition aims to show how the changes in Korean cities are closely linked to issues that the world will soon face in the near future.

The exhibition will also feature participation by Yoonkyung Bae, adjunct professor in the Department of Architecture at Dankook University; Gyoseok Lee, associate director at MVRDV in the Netherlands; and Jae Hyup Ko, co-CEO of Mission Object, who will serve as both participating artists and co-curators.

The selection committee commented, "Rather than viewing disappearance as a simple crisis or deficiency, Lee interprets it as a new possibility and presents a spatial and planning approach that differentiates itself from existing discourses with persuasive power."

The Venice Biennale, which began in 1895, is an international art event that alternates between art and architecture exhibitions every other year. The main curators for the 20th International Architecture Exhibition in 2027 will be Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, co-founders of Amateur Architecture Studio. The 20th International Architecture Exhibition will take place from May 8 to November 21, 2027, at the Giardini della Biennale and the Arsenale in Venice, Italy.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.