Seongdong District Office Cultural Complex Space 'Seongdong Chaekmaru' Renovated

Seongdong Chaekmaru Facility Improvement, Spring Cleaning of Office, and Seongdong Book Panel Replacement Deliver a Hopeful Spring Message
Used as an Open Shelter, Culture, and Leisure Space for All Residents for Reading, Meeting, Rest, and Performances
Established in 2018 in the 1st Floor Vacant Space of the Old District Office, Open Daily Until 9 PM, Visited by About 400 People a Day

Seongdong-gu, Seoul (Mayor Jung Won-oh) announced that it will renovate Seongdong Chaekmaru, a multipurpose cultural complex space within the district office, by the 14th, providing residents with a more comfortable environment for rest and leisure.

In 2018, responding to residents' opinions about the lack of rest areas within the district office and parents' wishes for a space where they could read and communicate with their children, Seongdong-gu utilized an idle space on the first floor of the district office to create Seongdong Chaekmaru. It is a communication library where reading, meetings, rest, and performances are possible, and a cultural complex space that can be used for various purposes, open to residents.

It is available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays as well as weekends, and during heatwave warnings, it is open 24 hours as a cooling shelter. Starting in April, cultural noon performances featuring various genres such as Korean traditional music and classical music will be held every second and fourth Wednesday of the month during lunchtime (12:00?13:00).

Marking its sixth year since opening, Seongdong Chaekmaru is visited by about 400 residents daily on average and serves as a landmark of Seongdong-gu, with many domestic and international institutions conducting relay benchmarking visits.

Seongdong Chaekmaru consists of the idle space in the first-floor lobby of the district office and the stairway connecting the first to third floors, including ▲ Stair Plaza for rest, meetings, and small lectures ▲ Rainbow Lounge, a small multipurpose space decorated in seven rainbow colors ▲ Rainbow Archive floating high above the Vision Gallery ▲ Mid-level Bookway evoking childhood attic nostalgia ▲ Media facade for media art ▲ Cloud Bookshelf filled with about 20,000 books including magazines, donated books, and children's books.

This year, with the arrival of spring, the entire facility will be refurbished to provide residents with a more pleasant leisure space. In particular, the ‘Rainbow Lounge’ and ‘Cloud Bookshelf’ will be intensively renovated, and additional lighting will be installed to increase brightness.

The district office building will also undergo a spring cleaning to remove accumulated grime. The exterior glass of the district office and the basement parking lot floor will be washed to thoroughly remove dust and stains accumulated over the winter.

The Seongdong Bulletin Board attached to the west outer wall of the district office has also been refurbished. It was replaced with a phrase capturing the spirit of spring ("Your smile has blossomed like a spring day"), allowing residents who had been curled up during the cold winter to feel the hopeful and warm emotions of spring.

Seongdong-gu operates various resident convenience facilities within the district office, including the ‘Seongdong-gu Rainbow Library’ (3rd floor), the toy rental facility ‘Rainbow Toy World’ (basement 1st floor), and the Seoul Forest Cafe (1st floor). Residents can enjoy rest, reading, and leisure all within the district office, breaking away from the image of public institutions as bleak and rigid.

Additionally, automatic sterilizing tumbler washers are installed throughout the building (two in the first-floor Chaekmaru, one in the second-floor civil service office, and one in front of the Rainbow Library on the third floor), highlighting meticulous, daily life-oriented policies that enhance residents' convenience.

Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, said, “I hope residents can enjoy more comfortable and relaxing rest and leisure in the freshly renovated district office this spring. We will make more careful efforts to ensure that the district office becomes a cozy space where residents can visit anytime with ease.”

Seongdong Chaekmaru 'Noon Cultural Performance'

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.