Suwon Hwaseong Museum is the world’s first fortress museum, comprehensively exhibiting all aspects of the 18th-century new city Hwaseong including the spirit and process for fortress construction, alongside comparative displays of global fortifications. Crucial to the design team was the fact that the museum is built within the actual historic site of Hwaseong itself. Beyond its World Heritage status, erecting a modern structure amid a site embodying the era’s full aesthetic and technical prowess posed a significant challenge. Rather than a generic design suitable anywhere, the team abstracted forms and spatial aesthetics coexisting with Hwaseong’s walls and defensive structures to manifest a new contemporary Hwaseong within the historic one — establishing the methodology of creating another Hwaseong inside the original as the core theme. 

Natural stones forming Hwaseong’s walls were adopted as the primary building material, with deliberate efforts to express the dynamic, undulating power of its curving walls. This wall flow penetrates indoors through the fully glazed curtain wall facade, interweaving contrasting elements to harmonize traditional and modern imagery. The central rotunda metaphorically references Hwaseong’s iconic watchtower, Northeast Observation Tower (Dongbuk Gongsimdon), abstracting its form and spatial composition as the architectural core while serving as the center of exhibition circulation. Walls of natural stone flowing from the exterior to the interior behind the curtain wall, exhibition spaces accessed via the Tower-inspired core, and the spatial depth of walls within blend with the actual ruins, aspiring to create a place unique to Hwaseong.