Hyundai Is Beta-Testing Its 2032 Science Museum on the Public
A free Exploratorium-built pop-up in Seoul will collect visitor feedback for the museum planned inside Hyundai's long-delayed GBC headquarters.
Hyundai Motor Group won't open its science museum in Seoul until 2032, but it has already started testing the exhibits on the public. A free pop-up called "Have Fun with Science," built with San Francisco's Exploratorium, opened October 6 at Hyundai Motorstudio Seoul and runs through December 15.
It's the latest in a string of non-car brand projects from the group this fall, arriving less than a month after Hyundai turned a New York museum's elevators into an AI art installation and shortly after it extended its Atlanta Braves sponsorship through 2029.
The exhibition takes over the Motorstudio's fifth floor with 12 hands-on stations built around motion, ecology, light, and sound. Visitors try to stay upright on a moving board, trigger a domino run that shows how energy passes from one block to the next, and watch wind shape ridges of sand in a tabletop dune. Three workshops have people wiring simple electrical circuits, and a separate session lets them build a small drawing machine driven by rotational motion.
Everything is free with a Hyundai Motorstudio membership. An adults-only opening night on October 6 added cocktails served with a science lesson and a station for taking apart old electronics.
A test run, not a showcase
The real purpose is feedback. Hyundai says it will log visitor comments and reactions and use them to shape both the exhibits and the day-to-day running of the permanent museum. It also plans to bring Korean science and creative groups into the process.
That's how the Exploratorium has long worked. Anne Richardson, its chief experience officer, said building prototypes and testing them with the public is central to how the museum develops new experiences. Founded in 1969 by physicist Frank Oppenheimer, the San Francisco museum draws close to 750,000 visitors a year, according to Hyundai.
The two organizations signed a long-term partnership in April, when Hyundai first set the 2032 opening date. The Seoul pop-up builds on a smaller science exhibition the group staged at Hyundai Motorstudio Goyang in 2024.
Tied to Hyundai's long-delayed headquarters
The museum will sit inside the Global Business Complex, or GBC, the group's future headquarters in Seoul's Gangnam district. The project was first pitched as a single 105-story, 1,867-foot (569-meter) tower that would have topped Lotte World Tower as Korea's tallest building.
Military objections and shifting market conditions killed that plan. Seoul has since approved a scaled-back redesign with three 49-story towers of 794 feet (242 meters) each, plus exhibition and performance space, and a 2031 completion target. When that approval was reported in January, construction was estimated at just 5.6% complete.
Hyundai hasn't said how big the museum will be, what it will cost to build, or whether visitors will pay admission. It also hasn't said whether more preview exhibitions will follow once this one closes in December.
