Permanent Exhibitions
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Gallery Guide
The National Palace Museum of Korea is a specialized repository and research institution for the Joseon royal and Korean imperial court artifacts. It opened on 15 August, 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Korea’s independence. On 28 November, 2007 the museum completed its renovation and reopened all of the galleries in the three-story building.
Collections of art and household goods from the court of the Joseon Dynasty had been unstably managed through long harsh periods of colonization, the Korean War and several decades of development. The Korea Heritage Service promoted a series of restoration projects for Joseon palaces in the mid 1980s, and collected scattered court objects from palaces, shrines and mausoleums to establish the Royal Museum, which opened at the Stone Hall of Deoksugung in 1992. Although the Royal Museum initially undertook the management, conservation, research and exhibition of Joseon court artifacts, its storage and exhibition spaces within the Stone Hall were by no means sufficient for permanent use. In 1993, a plan was approved by the president to establish the Museum of Joseon Royal History at the former venue of the National Museum of Korea, as soon as the National Museum moved to Yongsan in 2005.
The royal and imperial artifacts of the Joseon Dynasty were eventually housed in the central Gyeongbokgung area where the National Palace Museum of Korea is now located, after a decade of residence in Deoksugung. The museum encompasses an expanded collection of 40,000 items, five times as large an exhibition space as the former Deoksugung building and with a repository area which is thirty times larger. The objective of the National Palace Museum of Korea is to enrich contemporary culture in Korea and abroad by preserving cultural legacies and unveiling the splendor of the Joseon royal court.
