In June 2025, Museum SAN will unveil Ground, a new space created by Tadao Ando and Antony Gormley. The project marks the first collaboration between the celebrated architect and artist, bringing together their respective practices which profoundly examine the relationship between nature and the human condition. This mutual interest lies at the core of Ground. As the title implies, the work offers a sanctuary grounded in the earth – a place of quiet escape where we hope those who visit may ground themselves firmly in the lived moment.

Embedded underneath the museum’s flower garden, Ground is designed as a subterranean cave with its opening facing northeast towards the mountains of Wonju. Seven sculptures from Gormley’s Blockworks series are dispersed throughout its twenty-fi ve-meter round interior space and within the landscape beyond the cave mouth. Ground is both the artwork and the space, but it is also the nature that surrounds the site. The sunlight beaming down from the oculus, the breeze blowing in through the opening, and the sound of trees in the distance – all of these elements engage with the architecture and art to create a moment in time that is alive and ever-changing.