Olympic Effect

Contributors, Densities, Formats, High Density, Survey, Territory and mobility, Topics, Yongjoon Choi.

Ephemeral, Facilities, Infrastructure, Megacities & High Density, Photographic Atlas of the Cities, Photography, Seoul, South Korea, Sports Facilities.

Since 2010, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) has carried out various programs to lay the foundations of Korean architectural and design history. Accordingly, the MMCA presents the exhibition Olympic Effect: Korean Architecture and Design from 1980s to 1990s, which examines the rapid changes that occurred in Korea’s visual and material culture throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Taking “Olympic Effect” as the keywords, the exhibition revisits the architectural events and design objects that appeared as a result of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and reveals their multiple layers of meaning. As a major international event, the Olympics marked a seismic shift in all areas of Korean society. The exhibition turns the spotlight away from the Olympics themselves to focus on the overlapping scenes of the event’s preparation, exploring the urban development, environmental design, architecture, industrial design, and graphic design both prompted and ironically streamlined by the Olympics.