Camp Greaves

Character

Camp Greaves still reads as a military compound. The U.S. Army used the site from 1953 until 2004, and Gyeonggi Province has kept many of the base buildings in place rather than clearing the campus for a new attraction. What changed most dramatically is who can move through them

A former bowling alley became Gallery Greaves. In Ammunition Depot 1, Lee Seung-geun’s projection-mapping work “Do Not Cross This Line” sends visitors along a line across the floor; Depot 2 holds Yeon Jin-young’s “Wrinkled Habitat,” assembled from dismantled military tents and parachutes. One officers’ quarters block was converted into a youth hostel, while other barracks, a gymnasium, maintenance buildings and outdoor spaces remain part of the campus. In July 2026, a former warehouse reopened as The Greaves, an exhibition hall styled around a 1950s American cinema and built around photographs of soldiers and the base

The setting adds a restriction that ordinary adaptive-reuse sites do not have. Camp Greaves sits inside Paju’s Civilian Control Zone, about two kilometres from the DMZ Southern Limit Line. The fences, checkpoints and controlled approaches belong to the same border geography that shaped the base in the first place

The experience

For general visitors, the current route starts at Imjingak. The Peace Gondola crosses to DMZ Station; from there, the approach continues uphill on foot to the camp entrance. Once inside, the historic-park area has been operated for self-guided viewing since September 2025

Earlier visits were organized around fixed guided circuits. Today visitors can move independently among Gallery Greaves, the former ammunition buildings, Documenta spaces, Studio BEQ, The Greaves and the outdoor grounds. The ammunition depots followed the rest of the park into self-guided operation in May 2026

A free Korean-language interpretation program is still offered four times a day, so independent movement and guided explanation now coexist. The campus also retains a separate youth-hostel and program operation; road access through Tongil Bridge remains reserved for preregistered groups rather than ordinary walk-in visitors

History

The South Korean government provided the site for U.S. military use in July 1953, the month the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. U.S. forces remained for roughly half a century, with the withdrawal completed in August 2004. The land was returned in 2007

Public reuse came in stages. Camp Greaves opened as a DMZ experience facility in 2013. A cultural-regeneration program in 2016–17 converted former military buildings into exhibition spaces while retaining the base’s architecture; research on the project has treated that preserved military fabric as central to the site’s historical and spatial identity

Gyeonggi Province took ownership from the Ministry of National Defense in 2022. Public access then widened quickly: the historic park expanded its opening in 2024, shifted to self-guided viewing in September 2025, opened the ammunition depots without escorted entry in May 2026, and added The Greaves exhibition hall that July

Before you go

The easiest independent approach is through Imjingak and the Peace Gondola. Road entry through Tongil Bridge follows separate military-control procedures and is limited to preregistered program groups. The historic park and the DMZ youth-hostel operation share the same campus but follow different booking and access rules