‘Idle Space Cultural Regeneration Project’
29 Sites Currently in Operation
The Regional Culture and Development Agency (President Cha Jae-geun, hereinafter the Agency) marked the 10th year of its ‘Idle Space Cultural Regeneration Project,’ which transforms aging, unused spaces into cultural venues, by promoting outstanding exemplary cases through entertainment programs on broadcasters such as MBC.
The ‘Idle Space Cultural Regeneration Project’ is an initiative in which local governments purchase and remodel spaces that were once used as industrial facilities, military installations, closed schools, or township offices but that have lost their function or been left neglected due to changes in industrial structure and paradigms, giving them new life as cultural community spaces. With the aim of creating cultural and artistic spaces that embody the local and cultural value of an area, where past and present coexist, and of expanding opportunities for local residents and local cultural figures to participate in culture, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (hereinafter the Ministry) provided 116.4 billion won in state funding to 54 projects from 2014 to the present in 2023, completing and operating 29 sites.
In addition, to ensure the successful implementation and operation of the ‘Idle Space Cultural Regeneration Project’ carried out by local governments with state funding from the Ministry, the Agency has provided customized support tailored to local governments’ needs—including expert consultation and promotion—across the entire cycle, from the project planning stage through to the operational stage after completion.
A representative model case is Cheongju City’s ‘Dongbu Warehouse.’ Dongbu Warehouse is one of four public institutions established in the renovated Cheongju Tobacco Manufacturing Plant, which opened in 1946, and serves as a space for citizen-centered culture and arts, everyday culture, and culture and arts education. After the old Cheongju Tobacco Manufacturing Plant was closed in 1999, it lay neglected for about a decade before being transformed into a cultural hub with the arrival of the Dongbu Warehouse as well as the Cheongju Craft Biennale Permanent Hall (2011), the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Cheongju (2018), and the Culture Factory (2020). The citizen-centered Dongbu Warehouse has established itself as a regional cultural hub facility, hosting a variety of culture-related programs for citizens such as the ‘Dongbu Warehouse Festival’ and ‘Dongbu Warehouse Class.’