Bolstered by an outpouring of support by the Los Angeles Korean American community and its supporters, the construction of the nation’s first Korean American National Museum is on the horizon.
The proposed 40,000-square-foot museum – which will take up the first two stories of a seven-story multiplex that includes a movie theater, an auditorium, exhibit halls and 103 studio apartments, at least 10 percent of them affordable housing units – received more than $4 million in donations at a fundraising dinner inside the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Thursday.
Last November, the City Council unanimously passed a proposal, supported by Councilman David Ryu, the city’s first Korean elected to the council, to construct the museum. Now the museum is enlisting the help of community leaders to raise $20 million toward the building and endowment of the project.
The proposed Korean American National Museum in Koreatown, Los Angeles
According to organizers, construction is slated to begin in September, and a tentative opening is planned for 2018. The entire development will be not-for-profit, meaning the museum will fund itself through the money it makes from apartment rentals.
City Council President Herb Wesson, who joined efforts to build the space eight years ago, helped secure a 55-year, $1-a-year lease in 2013 for a parking lot located at the heart of Koreatown, at the intersection of Vermont Avenue and 6th Street. Wesson called having a museum on the floor and housing on top “one of the most creative concepts you want to see.” “It means they won’t have to come back to the city or the community asking for money,” he said. “I think this is the way of the future.”
Standing next to Ryu Thursday, Wesson announced the city would give an additional $1.5 million on top of the $2 million already delivered toward the project. “This would be the first Korean museum outside of Korea, to the largest Korean population outside of Korea, in one of the most diverse cities in the United States of America,” Wesson said. “So this is more than just a benefit for the Korean community. It’s a benefit for all of us at large. The more we know about different cultures, the better we all are. … It is truly important to know your past, and for the rest of L.A. to know all the things [Korean Americans] have done to make this city as great as it is.”
Ryu said the museum will stand as a symbol of the Korean American community and as a celebration of the past, the present and for future generations.
“[The museum] anchors who we are, and that we are a part of the community,” Ryu said. “Without our government’s support, we cannot do this. The fact that our L.A. city government stepped forward to help means so much.”
Left to right: David Ryu, Jae Min Chang, Herb Wesson, Dr. Myung Ki Hong, Dr. David Lee (Ben Gomez/Kore Asian Media)
Founded as a historical society in 1991, the Korean American Museum has held a string of exhibitions for the community, including two welcoming the centennial anniversary of Korean immigration to the U.S. in 2004. Its mission is “to preserve and interpret the history, experiences, culture and achievements of Americans of Korean ancestry,” and to “become a center for cultural exchange, arts, and education, a catalyst for sharing ideas and resources, and a center for promoting the diversity of culture in this country.”
Ambassador Sung Kim, special representative for North Korea Policy and deputy assistant secretary for Korea and Japan at the State Department, was the first-ever Korean American assigned to the post of U.S. ambassador to South Korea in 2011. He said during a speech that he hopes the museum will “be a place where we can share amazing stories, where we can embrace the diversity found in our community.”
Ambassador Sung Kim (Ben Gomez/Kore Asian Media)
UCLA The Now Institute Director Eui-sung Yi will help advise Gruen Associates, the architecture firm hired to oversee the museum, with design. Gruen’s past works include the Museum of Contemporary Art and renovations of the Hollywood Bowl and the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The museum board is co-chaired by Dr. Myung Ki Hong, the founder of Dura Coats Products and the Bright World Foundation who helped oversee the installation of a Riverside statue of early Korean American community leader Dosan Ahn Chang Ho in 2001, and Jae Min Chang, publisher of the Korea Times Los Angeles.
“This is not an effort by one person,” Hong said. “I hope this becomes a project through which the Korean American community becomes one. When we come together, there is nothing we cannot do.”
