Centre Pompidou Hanwha, Seoul

When I think of the 63 Building, I think of the aquarium. It was the kind of place most people in Seoul visited at least once as a child. That space is now a museum.

Centre Pompidou Hanwha officially opened on June 4th. It is the third international outpost of the Paris Pompidou Centre, following Málaga and Shanghai. Before the doors even opened, the venue drew attention when Chanel presented Matthieu Blazy's Métiers d'Art collection here in May.

The inaugural exhibition is The Cubists: Inventing Modern Vision. Featuring 112 works by 54 artists, it runs from June 4th through October 4th. I visited ahead of the opening during a preview, and the generous spacing between works made it easy to spend time with each one.

A few pieces stayed with me. Robert Delaunay's La Ville de Paris captured the light and colour of the city in a single frame. Picasso's Guitar Player was the kind of work that reveals its form slowly, the longer you look. Marie Laurencin's Apollinaire and His Friends gathered the figures of the Cubist circle in one place. And Georges Braque's Viaduct at L'Estaque felt like standing at the moment Cubism began.

Beyond the exhibition itself, the restaurants and dining spaces adjacent to the museum are something I am looking forward to as well. It feels like a natural continuation of the experience after a visit.

Seoul has a space like this now. I hope many people come.