Provisional Capital Memorial Hall

Character

For 1,023 days of the Korean War, a 1926 provincial governor’s residence in Bumin-dong became the president’s home, office and diplomatic workplace while Busan served as South Korea’s wartime capital

Built after the Gyeongsangnam-do government moved from Jinju to Busan under Japanese colonial rule, the red-brick residence was repurposed in 1950, turning an existing provincial residence into a presidential complex. Its reception room handled appointments, reports and high-level meetings; the city’s wartime-capital heritage record also identifies the residence as a venue for diplomacy with United Nations representatives and press briefings

The scale is domestic. A study sits beside bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen and living spaces used by President Rhee Syngman, his wife and staff. During the war those same rooms also supported the routines of a national government displaced from Seoul

The experience

The presidential residence is the first half of the visit. The first floor recreates the reception room, study, private room, living room, dining room and kitchen, keeping government work and household life in the same small building

The separate exhibition hall behind it widens the frame from the presidential household to wartime Busan. Its “War and Life” section uses models of shanty housing, a wartime school, International Market stalls, a milmyeon (wheat-noodle) shop and the Meildawon Café to show how refugees and residents lived in a city carrying the functions of a national capital

The other main section, “1,000 Days in the Provisional Capital, Busan,” puts administrative records beside ordinary commercial objects. A 1951 government budget, industrial maps and armistice-related documents appear alongside soju, face cream and combs from businesses operating during the period. Politics, bureaucracy and daily consumption occupy the same exhibition

That two-building arrangement is the museum’s strongest physical device. The residence keeps state power at household scale; the annex shows the much larger city of officials, refugees, schools, markets and companies around it

History

The residence was completed in August 1926 for the governor of Gyeongsangnam-do, after the provincial government had moved from Jinju to Busan. Its first life was part of the colonial administrative landscape of the city

After the Korean War began in 1950, the South Korean government moved through Daejeon and Daegu before establishing its wartime capital in Busan. UNESCO records two Busan periods — from August to October 1950 and again from January 1951 until August 1953 — totaling 1,023 days

During that period the residence became the presidential home and workplace. The building hosted political and diplomatic business while other existing facilities across Busan were similarly reassigned to government, refugee support and international cooperation

After the war, the building returned to use as the Gyeongsangnam-do governor’s residence. When the provincial government moved to Changwon in 1983, Busan acquired the property and opened the Provisional Capital Memorial Hall in June 1984

The former residence was designated a national historic site in 2018. The present exhibition complex also includes a separate former prosecutors’ residence behind it, converted into a video hall in 2002 and fully reopened as the current exhibition hall in 2012

Before you go

The museum works as one visit across two buildings. The restored residence carries the political and domestic story; the exhibition hall behind it carries much of the refugee, economic and citywide material. Together, they keep the presidential story beside the experience of refugees and the wider wartime city