Gyeongju Tower and Expo Park: The Silla Pagoda Rebuilt as Empty Space

In 645, Silla finished a nine-storey wooden pagoda at Hwangnyongsa temple. It stood about 80 metres high — a skyscraper by the standards of the seventh century, and the tallest wooden structure in East Asia. In 1238 it burned during the Mongol invasions and was never rebuilt. What survives at the temple site today is a field of stone column bases.

Gyeongju Tower, at the eastern edge of the Bomun resort area, is the strangest response anyone has made to that loss. Rather than reconstructing the pagoda, the architects cut its silhouette out of a solid glass-and-steel slab. The pagoda is there as a hole. It is 82 metres tall, exactly the height of the building that is missing.

Photo by Mobius6, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gyeongju Tower visitor information at a glance

Rates and hours from Korea Tourism Organization listings, September 2026. The operator states that hours vary by month — check the official site before a special trip, particularly for evening visits.

A building shaped like an absence

Gyeongju Tower was completed in August 2007. From a distance it reads as an ordinary tinted office slab; then you notice that the pagoda outline is not painted or attached but voided out, so that you are looking at sky through nine tiers of eaves.

It is a genuinely unusual piece of architecture, and it is the one thing at Expo Park you cannot see anywhere else. It also photographs badly from close up — the effect needs distance, so the best views are from across the park’s main plaza rather than from the base.

The Hwangnyongsa pagoda was raised under Queen Seondeok and stood for almost six hundred years before the fire of 1238. Its foundation stones are still in place at the Hwangnyongsa site west of here, and they are free to visit — an open field with the footprint of a vanished tower.

Inside the tower

The ticket gets you up to the observation level, which looks out over the Bomun resort district and Bomun Lake. On a clear day the ring of hills around the basin reads well; it is not a view of the historic downtown, which lies further west.

A local’s note. Of course I have been up. The tower is included in the park ticket, so going up costs nothing extra, and being able to see the whole Bomun area at a glance is great.

There is also a two-sided multimedia presentation on a thousand years of Silla, running roughly every 20 minutes. It is a reasonable primer if you are at the start of your trip and have not yet been to the national museum.

Solgeo Art Museum

Solgeo is Gyeongju’s first public art museum and, for a lot of visitors, the best part of the ticket — it is included, not extra.

It exists because the ink painter Park Dae-sung, one of the major figures in modern Korean brush painting, offered the city a donation of some 830 works. The museum opened around that gift in 2015. The building is quiet, low and daylit, and the work — large-format ink landscapes, much of it drawing on Gyeongju itself — sits very naturally in a city built on the same material culture.

If you have limited time in the park, spend it here rather than on the rides.

What else is in the park

Expo Park grew out of the Gyeongju World Culture Expo events and became a permanent park in 2012. The grounds are large, landscaped and easy to walk, and the attractions are mostly of the indoor, family, all-weather kind:

• Luminite — the park’s evening light and media installation, which is why the grounds stay open to 22:00.
• Immersive VR studio and other media exhibits.
• Saemaul train — a road train that saves walking across a fairly spread-out site.
• Gardens and ponds, including a landscaped walking area that is pleasant in blossom season and in autumn.

This is the part of Gyeongju that is built rather than excavated, and it is aimed squarely at families and at bad weather.

A local’s note. I am raising twin boys, and this is their favourite place in Gyeongju, by a distance. There is a kids’ café, and the park itself is wide and car-free, which makes it perfect for scooters.

A local’s note. It is good in any of the four seasons, and there is plenty to see. The weak point is food: there is not much to eat in the park, so plan to eat outside. Because cars are not allowed inside the park, it feels very safe for children. The kids’ café seems to run in time slots (I think about 30 minutes), so you have to keep leaving and re-entering, which is a bit of a nuisance. For a first visit, though, I think it is all good. For how it fits into a family trip, see our Gyeongju with kids plan.

Is it worth 12,000 won?

Worth being straight about this: almost everything else this site covers in Gyeongju is free. Cheomseongdae, Wolji Pond and the tomb parks charge little or nothing, and the temples on the eastern road charge nothing at all. Against that, 12,000 won is the most expensive single ticket in the city.

The honest summary: this is a good half-day for families and a good rainy-day fallback, and Solgeo alone justifies the ticket for anyone interested in Korean painting. It is not a substitute for the historic core.

How to get there

The park sits at the eastern end of the Bomun resort area, which makes it one of the easier attractions in Gyeongju to reach without a car.

By bus

Get off at the Gyeongju Expo Grand Park stop (ID 01019). It is served by regular buses 10 and 11, which loop the main sights in opposite directions, and by seat buses 100, 150 and 700 heading for the east coast.

That is unusually good coverage. If you are already going out to Munmu Daewangneung on the 100 or 150, the park is on the way rather than a detour.

By car

About 15 minutes from downtown Gyeongju, and parking is free — worth noting, because parking is one of the frictions of the historic core at peak times.

Distances from other Gyeongju sights

Straight-line distances calculated from official coordinates. Road distances are longer.

By car

The designated car park is large, so you can simply park there.

A local’s note. There is a trick for parking closest to the entrance: directly opposite the entrance there is a Burger King, and its car park is also free, so it is effectively the closest place to park. It is a business’s car park, so use it considerately.

Location map

Gyeongju Expo Grand Park, 614 Gyeonggam-ro, Gyeongju:

Frequently asked questions

Is Solgeo Art Museum included in the ticket?

Yes. The 12,000 won adult ticket is a combined park pass covering the museum and the tower, not a separate charge.

How long should I allow?

Half a day covers it comfortably: an hour or so at Solgeo, the tower and its presentation, and a walk around the grounds. Families with young children could spend longer.

Can I see the tower without paying?

You can see the exterior from outside the gates and from the approach road — and since the pagoda cutout is the point, that is most of the effect. The ticket is for going up it and for everything else inside.

Is this a good rainy-day option?

It is one of the best in Gyeongju. Most of the city’s attractions are outdoors, and the park’s exhibition halls, museum and media attractions are not.

Where is the actual Hwangnyongsa site?

West of here, near the historic centre. It is an open archaeological site with the pagoda’s foundation stones, free to enter, and it makes an interesting contrast if you visit both.

Conclusion

Gyeongju Expo Park is the modern city’s answer to a place defined by its ruins, and the tower is a smarter piece of design than a replica pagoda would have been: it makes the absence the monument.

Treat it as a family half-day, a rainy-day plan, or a trip to see Park Dae-sung’s paintings — not as a replacement for the tombs and temples. If you are working out how to spend your days, our theme-by-theme guide to Gyeongju lays out the alternatives.

Information verified against Korea Tourism Organization listings and the operator’s official site as of September 2026. Admission, seasonal hours and programme times change — confirm before travelling.

Sources

• Gyeongju World Culture Expo — official site: cultureexpo.or.kr
• Solgeo Art Museum — official site: gjsam.or.kr
• Gyeongju Culture & Tourism — Gyeongju Tower: gyeongju.go.kr
• Gyeongju Culture & Tourism — Solgeo Art Museum: gyeongju.go.kr
• Gyeongju Intelligent Transport System — bus routes: its.gyeongju.go.kr