May 14, 2024

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Pieces from the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee's art collection (Yonhap)

A new art museum featuring some 23,000 artworks collected by the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee is expected to be built in central Seoul in 2028 after getting regulatory approval Thursday.

The museum was one of the six construction projects whose feasibility reviews gained approval from the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Following his death in 2020, his family donated a total of 23,181 art pieces previously owned by Lee. The collection includes various masterpieces by renowned Korean and Western artists, including Kim Whan-ki, Park Su-geun, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

The new art museum, with a floor area of 26,000 square meters, will be located near Gwanghwamun in central Seoul. The total budget for the building of the museum is 118.6 billion won ($92.5 million), with construction set to be completed by 2028.

Competition heated up among local governments to host the museum that is highly likely to become a popular tourist spot, but the nation’s Culture Ministry selected Seoul’s Jongno district as the location considering its proximity to other museums and art galleries in the city center.

Currently, Lee’s collections are housed at several museums including the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The new art museum will bring together all his scattered collections in one place, enabling visitors to enjoy them all at once.

The late Samsung patriarch was an iconic business mogul credited with spurring the country’s rise to a technology powerhouse by transforming Samsung Group into one of the world's major tech giants from a small trading firm.

He died at 78 at a hospital in Seoul in October 2020, after spending six years in a coma following a heart attack in May 2014.

By Song Jung-hyun (junghyun792@heraldcorp.com)