63 Building & Centre Pompidou Hanwha

The 63 in the name

The “63” in 63 Building counts 60 floors above ground and three below. The name turned all 63 levels into the tower’s identity; the public observatory itself sits on the 60th floor

Korea Life originally planned a 15-storey headquarters on Yeouido. Government officials pushed for a much taller landmark, and the project expanded into a record-setting tower. Construction began in 1980 on river-island ground that required foundations reaching about 45 metres down to rock. A contemporary architectural account records 243 large supports carrying a building of roughly 100,000 tonnes

Park Chun-myung and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill shaped the 249.6-metre tower with a profile that broadens toward the base. Its reflective curtain wall shifts between silver, yellow and gold as the light changes. When the building opened in 1985, the silhouette was visible across the Han and unlike anything else in Seoul

How a corporate tower became a day out

Around 30,000 people reportedly came on opening day. The building mixed offices with an aquarium, observatory, restaurants, shops and an IMAX cinema, turning a corporate headquarters into a destination families could spend hours inside

That public role survived the loss of the height record. Hanwha acquired Korea Life in 2002, then spent more than a decade modernizing the aging tower. Renovation phases from 2005 onward replaced almost 14,000 gold-coated exterior windows, updated building systems and reshaped visitor facilities; Korea Life itself was renamed Hanwha Life in 2012. By then the building was no longer selling novelty through height alone

Aqua Planet 63 eventually recorded about 90 million cumulative visitors. It and 63 Art closed together on 30 June 2024, ending two attractions that had defined the building for generations

A second public life

Centre Pompidou Hanwha opened in June 2026 in the remodeled four-storey annex beside the tower. Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s conversion created two large exhibition halls along with an auditorium, studios and education spaces for a multi-year partnership drawing on the Centre Pompidou collection

The upper tower reopened through 63 SkyPicnic. Indoor viewing, media installations and a cafe occupy the 60th floor, while the former helipad above became an outdoor rooftop. At ground level, Piet Oudolf’s garden replaced part of the old corporate forecourt with perennial planting that changes through the seasons

Museum, garden and roof now give the 1985 landmark three distinct public levels: art beside the tower, landscape at its base and the city view at the top. The gold exterior still marks the skyline; what has changed is how people can use the building

Before you go

Centre Pompidou Hanwha and 63 SkyPicnic are separate ticketed attractions, so a combined visit works better when planned as two stops rather than one continuous route. The museum entrance is in the annex, while the observatory is reached through the tower. From Yeouinaru Station, the complex is also about a 15-minute walk. Rooftop access can close in bad weather without affecting the indoor 60th-floor observatory