Photo: Hyundai Card
For those in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is nearly impossible to avoid. Aside from its prestigious collection, MoMA boasts some of the city’s most inviting bookshops and design stores, filled to the brim with sweeping museum catalogs, playful trinkets, and iconic MoMA-branded merch. Earlier this month, however, MoMA made the journey from its home in New York to across the Pacific.
On September 8, 2025, MoMA opened its first-ever bookstore in Seoul, nestled in the city’s Dosan Park area. The shop was established in collaboration with Korean credit card company Hyundai Card, whose other branded spaces, like the Cooking Library, Iron & Wood, and Red11, are also nearby. Inside, visitors can expect to discover more than 1,100 books, comprising a stunning assortment of exhibition catalogs and coffee table books. As is to be expected, these titles span such topics as art, design, and architecture, all selected in an effort to complement MoMA’s collection. Accompanying these books are several home decor and design objects pulled from the MoMA Design Store.
The bookshop’s architecture is as inspired as its offerings. From the outside, the shop’s facade is austere yet textured with corrugations, creating a graphic contrast to the MoMA logo impressed into the building’s upper-right corner. Open the door and the sleek aesthetic continues into a gray-hued browsing area. Though monotone, this interior color palette only serves to highlight the bookstore’s offerings, many of which bear vibrant covers. Slipping into the adjacent room marks a complete departure from the main shop. Here, each wall is doused in bold yellows and oranges, resulting in an atmosphere that perfectly encapsulates the design objects and apparel on display.
Notably, Seoul’s MoMA Bookstore stands as the newest initiative in an enduring partnership with Hyundai Card. For nearly 20 years, the museum and credit card company have coordinated several exhibitions together in Korea, including Humble Masterpieces in 2008, Tim Burton in 2012, and Pervasive Light in 2022. In 2024, Hyundai Card and MoMA jointly launched a new phase of their partnership with the “Hyundai Card Curatorial Exchange Program,” focusing on increasing exchange and further research between MoMA and local Korean curators. Earlier this year, in March 2025, Hyundai Card even launched a digital wall at its headquarters, mirroring a similar installation on view at MoMA in New York.
The MoMA Bookstore at Hyundai Card is open every day except for Mondays. To plan your own visit, check out MoMA’s store locator.
MoMA has opened a new bookstore in Seoul, where visitors can browse more than 1,100 books about art, architecture, and design.
Photo: Hyundai Card
Photo: Hyundai Card
Photo: Hyundai Card
