The Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism was held for about two months, came to an end in great success on November 10. First carried out in 2017 under the theme of 'Imminent Commons', the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (hereinafter Seoul Biennale) gathered 450,000 people in the first year and marked the beginning of the Seoul Biennale. This year, the much-expanded scale and interest of people were able to be seen as the attendance numbers of the first year was already exceeded in October, at the height of the Biennale.
This Biennale, which was planned under the theme of 'Collective City', was co-directed by Domestic co-director Jaeyong Lim (CEO of OCA Architects) and Foreign co-director Francisco Sanin (Professor of Syracuse University). In addition to the Thematic Exhibition, the main exhibition in which 43 teams from all around the world have participated, and the Cities Exhibition, which covered more than 80 major cities around the world, various attractions have been provided, such as the Global Studios with 43 universities from home and abroad and Live Projects of multi-programs such as exhibition and pavilion, market and tour. Moreover, with free lectures and exploration programs such as the City Architect Forum, Openhouse, and Exploring the City Underground, events that induce the participation of citizen were also held. Public Programs were continuously sold out as soon as reservations were available, and there was even an extension request of Public Programs for those who were unable to reserve them.
With a scale much larger than before, this Seoul Biennale, in which 54 countries, 180 institutions and 43 universities around the world have participated, received a lot of attention and love from not only architecture and urbanism experts but laymen as well. The Seoul Biennale is anticipated to continue to identify the issues of urbanism, bring up in-depth topics and being led by Seoul, become a forum for conversation where they are discussed.
