A Cold War Bunker in Seoul Trades Camouflage for Iris Beds and Forest Sound

A former anti-tank bunker in northern Seoul is opening its grounds to a new season of public art. The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday that "Afterimage of Peace: Moments of Circulation Met in the Forest" opens Saturday, Oct. 24, and runs through Dec. 13 at Seoul Changpowon, the iris garden beside the Peace Culture Bunker in Dobong District, near Mount Dobong in the city's northeast.

The bunker itself, built around 1970 as an anti-tank defense facility along a route North Korean armor used during the 1950-53 Korean War, sits a short walk from the garden. Its upper floors once doubled as camouflage housing to conceal the military structure below, according to the city's 2017 reopening materials reported by The Korea Times. Designed by CoRe Architects for its 2017 conversion into a cultural venue, the renovation deliberately kept visible traces of the original military fabric instead of smoothing them away, as shown in photographer Hwang Hyochel's documentation published on Divisare.

This exhibition is the first installment of a two-site public art project that the city's Design Industry Division organized through an open call themed around "ways of embedding art in a circulating forest," according to Seoul's official project notice. Six works will be on view: pieces from two emerging-artist teams, including Lee Ye-chan's "Shadow Record Platform" and a collaboration by Kang Da-young and Kim Sun-hee titled "O-gong-won," alongside four student-team works from Seoul National University, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Hanyang University and Hongik University, among them a sound piece called "Forest of Five Sounds."

The garden and bunker sit beside Peacecho Park, which the district promotes as the first large-scale eco-friendly outdoor music venue built by a Korean public institution, and the rooftop walkway above the bunker's five connected units, which span roughly 250 meters, looks out toward Dobongsan, Bukhansan, Suraksan and Bulamsan. As a municipal park program, the garden keeps standard outdoor hours and the show carries no listed admission fee, with no advance booking required; visitors can check current hours and any schedule updates through the Peace Culture Bunker's own site, culturebunker.or.kr, before visiting.

Dobong District has used the same ground for peace-themed programming before. In March 2022 it held a concert titled "Peace Resonance" at Peacecho Park and the bunker in solidarity with Ukraine, timed to a statement from the Seoul Metropolitan Council of District Mayors condemning Russia's invasion, as Asia Economy reported at the time. Two years earlier, the site hosted children's peace classes built around a communally decorated "peace tree" and a display of postcards addressed across the inter-Korean border. This year's student and emerging-artist works join that same patch of garden, now turning from Cold War concrete toward iris beds and forest sound installations through mid-December.