한국국제교류재단

Anyone visiting Heyri for the first time is struck by the order within disorder — the roads wind and curve rather than running straight, and the buildings vary widely in materials and color. Yet there is a single guiding principle: to preserve the natural landscape and topography as much as possible. Instead of planning around urban blocks, Heyri was organized around the patterns of daily life so that living, working, creating, and resting are carried out in the same space.

To achieve this, much of the village’s 150,000-pyeong (495,900-square-meter) site was left as green space, and all buildings were limited to a height of 12 meters, so the surrounding hills would remain visible, their contours intact. Unlike in most cities, where the sky is obscured by high-rises, here you need only lift your head to see it. Fences are prohibited, so trees and plants define property boundaries instead, allowing people and spaces to connect naturally, without barriers.

Opened in 2004, the Dalki Theme Park & Shop played a major role in bringing Heyri Art Valley to public attention with its distinctive architectural design and imaginative exhibition content. Featured at the 9th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, the building was unfortunately demolished in 2024. Even so, for many people, this is still the first place that comes to mind when they think of Heyri.
© Gyeonggi Tourism Organization

Another rule stipulates that at least 60 percent of every building be dedicated to cultural facilities. This is why Heyri, filled with galleries, studios, and art shops, often feels like an open-air museum when you stroll through it. Performances, exhibitions, workshops, and lectures take place year-round across its cultural spaces, some of which have become trendy destinations for younger visitors.

One such venue is the Kim Jung Gi Museum, which honors the creative world of its namesake artist. Kim Jung Gi (1975–2022) was renowned for drawing images from memory, often completing canvases tens of meters long in a single, continuous flow. Inside the museum, visitors find his drawing tools, sketches that cover entire walls, and interview footage from his lifetime. His philosophy — “a drawing is made with the mind, not the hand” — continues to inspire Heyri’s artists and visitors alike.

The Han Hyang Lim Ceramic Museum features a wide range of contemporary ceramic art from Korea and other countries. Its founder, Han Hyang Lim, describes ceramics as “a form in which earth and humans are reunited.” Even everyday objects such as teacups, plates, or bottles carry an artistic sensibility, while the fine cracks in glazed surfaces, known as crazing, resemble the imperfections of life and give off a sense of warmth. Nestled into a hillside, the museum building is a work of art itself and received the Excellence Award at the 2020 Korean Architecture Awards.

Music Space Camerata — a long concrete box inspired by barns in rural Montana — houses a residence, gallery, and music cafe, a combination that perfectly captures the spirit of the art village. Created by broadcaster Hwang In-yong, who spent decades working in both television and radio, it offers a quiet refuge for music lovers. “Listening to music all the time,” he says, “is like having a place to lean on, somewhere to cry when you’re lonely.” Visitors settle into their seats surrounded by walls lined with artworks and massive analog speakers, listening to Hwang’s vast collection of vinyl records, boosted by vintage vacuum-tube amplifiers. In this space, sound — rather than light — fills the room, a sensory experience that reminds us that art extends beyond the visual.

The same village ethos carries into Heyri Cinema, an intimate theater devoted to Korean independent and art films. The small auditorium features a space for Q&A sessions between directors and audiences. Post-screening discussions often unfold here, sometimes blossoming into new projects. The idea of the audience as co-creator reflects the spirit of Heyri that art is not a one-way process but shaped through interaction and shared emotion.

With the shifting light of day and turning of the seasons, Heyri never looks quite the same. In spring, azaleas and cherry blossoms come into bloom; in summer, vines and aquatic plants spread wide; in autumn, ginkgo leaves flutter down and silver grass sways in the wind; and in winter, soft snow blankets the landscape, blurring the buildings’ outlines. Here, the word “vegetation” feels more fitting than “landscaping.” Grasses and trees grow on rooftops, and rainwater is absorbed by the soil rather than being channeled away by artificial drains. The natural environment at Heyri is not a backdrop but part of the architecture itself.

When night falls, the village is lit not by streetlights but by the glow coming from its buildings. Light spills softly through glass walls and washes over the streets, giving the village a gentle radiance. Here, night is not darkness — it becomes another artistic scene. This sensibility continues beyond the village. Ten minutes away by car, at the edge of Paju Book City, stands the Mimesis Art Museum. Designed by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza, the museum is a graceful structure of white concrete curves. Its exterior has not a single decorative line, yet changing sunlight transforms the building’s appearance throughout the day. Inside, diagonal shafts of natural light descend from the ceilings, guiding the gaze of visitors as they explore exhibitions spanning painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, and design. Mimesis is a Greek term meaning “imitation” or “representation,” a fundamental principle of artistic creation, but at Heyri imitation is about learning the order and rhythm of nature.

Music Space Camerata, run by broadcaster Hwang In-yong, is one of Paju’s signature music listening venues, alongside Concino Concrete. Its interior is styled like a concert hall, with a grand piano at the front and vintage speakers positioned just behind it.
© Lee Min-hee

Also close by is Concino Concrete, a listening lounge and multicultural space that is popular among classical music lovers. Its soaring ceiling and massive concrete interior are striking, and the deep, majestic sound that pours from five enormous speakers — made in Germany in the 1930s — is overwhelming. Sitting there, one feels almost transported back to an earlier era, as if music were carrying time itself.

At the heart of Heyri Art Valley is a simple tenet: It’s always about people. The artists here do more than create. They eat together, help with their respective exhibitions, and look after each other’s children, forming a warm, loosely structured community. The cafe owner is a former sculptor, the bookstore owner is a novelist, and a local ceramic artist collects clay from nearby fields. Everyone is both an artist and a resident.

Another pillar of the village is its commitment to sustainability. Every structure is designed with energy efficiency in mind, and many buildings feature rainwater-reuse systems or solar panels. Recently, a variety of children’s educational programs have been introduced to teach young visitors about soil, plants, insects, and the water cycle. As art and ecology come together, Heyri transforms from a collection of exhibition spaces into a living classroom.

As they leave, visitors may ask themselves, “Is this a museum or a village?” Created by artists, Heyri is both, offering an alternative to conventional urban planning and quietly posing a question about how people choose to live. Here, art is not something to be owned or consumed but rather a way of being. This is a place where the boundaries between art and everyday life dissolve and where nature and people coexist.

By day, winter migratory birds such as greater white-fronted geese, swan geese, and white-naped cranes glide overhead in search of food, then return to the fields by evening, silhouetted against a deep red sunset. In those peaceful moments, Heyri carries on at its own gentle pace.

The National Folk Museum of Korea, Paju, is the first Korean national museum to open in the northern region of Gyeonggi Province. In addition to preserving and managing artifacts and archival materials, it operates an open storage facility where visitors can view selections from the museum’s collection of more than one million items and records.
© Paju City