PARK1538

Character

When POSCO rebuilt its old promotion center, steel from the previous 36-year-old building was melted down and cast into the cornerstone of the new one. Across PARK1538, another 807 tonnes of POSCO steel went into structures, cladding and landscape elements, turning the company’s own material into the campus itself

The name carries the same idea. “1538” refers to the melting point of pure iron, while “Park” signals the attempt to turn what had been a factory-centered corporate site into a more open landscape of museums, paths and public space

That transformation is unusually literal. The 1.2-kilometre masterplan links a history museum, promotion hall, Hall of Honor, waterside park and views toward Pohang Steelworks. Steel is not only the subject being explained; it is the material underfoot, overhead and inside the structures that explain it

The experience

Water, planting and steel shape the first stretch of the campus. A waterside park and planted paths lead toward the POSCO History Museum, then uphill along Chaoreum-gil to the promotion hall

At the entrance stands Ron Arad’s eight-metre stainless-steel *Infiniturn*. Inside, Anish Kapoor’s polished *Non-object, Pole* reflects visitors and the glass courtyard around it. These pieces make steel behave less like heavy infrastructure and more like a surface that bends, mirrors and changes perception

The route then becomes industrial again. A 234-metre elevated bridge links the promotion hall to the Hall of Honor and frames long views toward the steelworks. Its form refers to the air passages that feed a blast furnace, and a 14-metre-high observation point includes a glass floor

The strongest part of the campus is the proximity of the real plant. Exhibits can describe furnaces, products and company history, but the skyline of an operating steelworks gives those stories scale. Some reserved tours continue into the industrial complex itself

History

The site had accumulated corporate facilities beside Pohang Steelworks since the 1970s, organized around the needs of the factory and headquarters rather than around public movement

The old promotion center had operated for 36 years before the redevelopment. From 2019 to early 2021, POSCO reorganized the grounds as a connected cultural campus, rebuilding the promotion hall and tying previously separated facilities together through parkland and walking routes

PARK1538 opened to the public in April 2021. Yonhap reported that the 29,000-square-metre project used 807 tonnes of POSCO construction steel and included a 1.2-kilometre park sequence linking the company’s museum and visitor facilities

The project later received Korea’s Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Award in the 2021 Korea Landscape Awards, followed by iF Design Award recognition in architecture, signage and interior installation. Those awards fit the project’s real ambition: this is corporate interpretation expressed through a full masterplan rather than a single exhibition building

Before you go

PARK1538 has two different scales of visit. The outdoor landscape can function as a walk on its own, while the museum, promotion hall and steelworks components form a more structured sequence with controlled entry. The experience therefore changes substantially depending on which parts of the campus are included