Seoul's Craft Museum Lets Kids Smell, Climb and Take Apart Wood in New Exhibition

The Seoul Museum of Craft Art opened a children's exhibition this week that treats wood as something to smell, climb and take apart rather than just build with. "Secrets of Wood" opened Tuesday at the Children's Museum, on the third floor of the museum's Education Building, and runs through September 19, 2027.

The museum sits in the former Pungmun Girls' High School building in Anguk-dong, Jongno-gu, central Seoul. Admission to the main galleries is free, but the Children's Museum area requires an advance online reservation, with new slots opening at midnight each day on the museum's website. Through November 30, the museum keeps extended hours, staying open until 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and closing on Mondays.

The exhibition was developed with woodworking artist Somokjang Semi, the professional name of Yoo Hye-mi, who has shown work at Arko Art Center, the Seoul Museum of Art and the National Hangeul Museum, and who has exhibited at SeMoCA before. Yoo trained in sculpture before turning to woodworking after building a bunk bed for a friend, then studied at a joinery center and founded her solo studio in 2012. Her furniture avoids heavy ornament and often breaks down into separate pieces, a practical fit for small households that move frequently, a departure from the elaborate joinery traditionally associated with the title she works under.

Seven interactive installations fill the show, organized into three sections: discovering the senses, discovering structures and discovering possibilities. In the first section, children examine the colors, patterns, textures and scents of different wood types through pieces that include an acupressure bench and a rotating maze modeled on the branching paths of underground tree roots.

Later sections let children assemble wooden pieces into Hangeul letters and words, arrange decorative veneers into images, and take part in climbing structures and cooperative games built around traditional woodworking techniques turned into play. The format extends a pattern at SeMoCA, which hosted a Seoul Woodworking Festival in October 2024 where families built traditional soban dining tables, stools and keychains, and which relaunched its Children's Museum earlier this year as a space called the Craft Playground for children nine and under, with recurring furniture-making workshops.

Visitors should book the Children's Museum slot before arriving, since same-day walk-ins aren't guaranteed, and should check SeMoCA's site for the current extended-hours schedule, since it runs only through the end of November. Checked November 3, 2026.