For the first time, Japanese architect Tadao Ando and British sculptor Antony Gormley have collaborated on a permanent project: Ground, a newly inaugurated pavilion at Museum SAN, set within the mountainous landscape of Wonju.
The intervention consists of an underground concrete dome measuring 25 meters in diameter and 7.2 meters in height, accessed via a spiral staircase and illuminated by a central oculus 2.4 meters wide. Radical and silent, the space is designed to receive natural light and atmospheric elements—wind, rain, snow—in a continuous dialogue with time and landscape.
The red of iron, when exposed to oxygen, is the same red as our blood.
Anthony Gormley
The result is a work that unites architectural minimalism and sculptural tension in a single shared gesture, carved into the earth.
Inside, Gormley has installed seven sculptures from one of his most iconic series, Blockworks, made of rusted iron. These essential human figures, composed of modular geometric volumes, are positioned in various postures—standing, sitting, lying down—scattered along the perimeter of the space. They are rationalized representations of the human body that do not aim to portray individuals, but rather bodies conceived by the artist as “places of perception.”
The contrast between Ando’s grey concrete and Gormley’s rust red is a key element. As the artist explains: “This is how the nature of iron expresses itself in relation to air. The red of iron, when exposed to oxygen, is the same red as our blood, which plays a very important role in carrying oxygen from the air to our muscles.”
I’m overwhelmed by the thought that this work will remain at Museum SAN for the next one or two hundred years
Tadao Ando
Ando described the project as an evolution of his spatial poetics, explaining the decision to bury the pavilion entirely in order to create an invisible architecture—one that reactivates the relationship between body, environment, and silence: “You are confronted with the fact that there is the Earth, and that beyond it stretches blue nature. (…) I’m overwhelmed by the thought that this work will remain in and around Museum SAN for the next one or two hundred years.”
Museum SAN (an acronym for Space, Art, Nature), designed by Tadao Ando and inaugurated in 2013, stretches for approximately 700 meters along the mountain ridge of Oak Valley, in Gangwon Province, South Korea. The complex integrates exhibition galleries, flower and water gardens, a meditation hall, a print atelier, and a permanent pavilion dedicated to James Turrell, forming a path that blends art, architecture, and landscape. Conceived as a place of retreat from the everyday and of perceptual immersion, the museum welcomes over one million visitors each year.
The inauguration of Ground coincides with the opening of “Drawing on Space”, the most comprehensive solo exhibition ever dedicated to Gormley in Korea. On view until November 30, 2025, the show features 48 works including installations, sculptures, and drawings. Among them, pieces such as Liminal Field and Orbit Field II extend the artist’s ongoing exploration of the body as a field of forces and as the emanation of a mental space.