Pompidou Center Hanwha

The Centre Pompidou Hanwha is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea. Scheduled to open on June 4, 2026, it represents the second East Asian satellite of Paris's Centre Pompidou, following the West Bund Museum in Shanghai. The institution emerges from a licensing partnership between the Centre Pompidou and the Hanwha Foundation of Culture, timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and South Korea.

Negotiations for the collaboration began in 2023. The inaugural licensing contract between the Centre Pompidou and the Hanwha Foundation of Culture spans four years, from 2026 to 2029. The museum's opening date of June 4, 2026, was deliberately chosen to mark the 140th anniversary of Franco-Korean diplomatic ties. The opening exhibition, The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision, will inaugurate the space. Visuals of the completed museum were revealed in April 2026, two months prior to opening. French sources indicate that after 2030, there are plans to relocate the institution to Busan.

Under the terms of the agreement, the museum will present two major exhibitions annually drawn from the Centre Pompidou's collection. Beyond these, it will organize special exhibitions dedicated to contemporary Korean artists and will develop educational and cultural programming. This dual structure, combining canonical European modernism with contemporary Korean practice, defines the institution's curatorial identity.

Specific works in the museum's holdings have not yet been detailed in available sources, as the institution had not opened at the time of documentation. The inaugural exhibition, The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision, suggests a focus on foundational modernist works from the Centre Pompidou's collection.

The museum occupies a renovated section of the 63 Building, also known as the DLI 63 Building, the headquarters of the Hanwha chaebol in Yeouido. The building was previously used as an aquarium. French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte designed the renovation. The four-story structure contains two main gallery spaces of 1,500 square feet each, with a total area of 108,000 square feet. Its most distinctive feature is a glass facade shaped like an envelope, which filters daylight during daytime and transforms the building into a glowing urban landmark at night.

The Centre Pompidou Hanwha is located in Yeouido, a major business and cultural district in Seoul. Its website is https://www.centrepompidou-hanwha.kr/. The museum is owned and operated through the partnership between the Centre Pompidou and the Hanwha Foundation of Culture. As of the sources' documentation, the institution had not yet opened to the public.