At Renaissance, Seoul’s forgotten classical music salon comes back to life

Renaissance at the Arts Council of Korea’s (ARKO) Artist House in central Seoul is a classical music listening space based on the donated collection from Pak Yong-chan. Korea Times photo by Kim Se-jeong

By Kim Se-jeong

• Published Jan 28, 2026 1:14 PM KST
• Updated Feb 3, 2026 10:47 AM KST

Collector Pak Yong-chan’s legacy lives on as listening archive in Daehangno

The bustling Daehangno area in Seoul is a haven for artists and art lovers. Theater posters layer the walls and audiences drift between small stages, cafes and late-night bars.

Tucked inside the Arts Council of Korea’s (ARKO) Artist House is a quieter kind of stage.

Behind its doors sits Renaissance, a music salon that feels less like a venue and more like a time capsule. Vintage speakers tower over the room. Record players and old amplifiers sit like relics of another era. Faded fliers and yellowing papers hint at stories that stretch back decades.

Opened in May 2025, the space invites visitors to do something increasingly rare: sit still and listen.

Renaissance is rooted in the legacy of one man — Pak Yong-chan (1916-94).

Born into an affluent family in Imsil, South Jeolla Province, during Japanese colonial rule, Pak developed a love for classical music at an early age. He studied economics at Meiji University in Japan, and when he returned home, his luggage was said to be filled with classical music vinyls — as many as 8,000.

When Seoul was taken by North Korean and Chinese forces in 1951 during the 1950-53 Korean War, Pak fled with two trucks full of records. After arriving in southeastern city of Daegu, he opened his first music salon, Renaissance. His goal was clear: to help local music lovers and soldiers momentarily forget the tragedies of war and offer them a sense of peace and shelter.

When he moved back to Seoul in 1954, he reopened Renaissance in Insa-dong, before relocating to a permanent space in Jongno 1-ga, where the salon remained until it closed in 1986.

In 1987, Pak donated his collection to the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, which was later transferred to the ARKO Arts Archive. The donation totaled about 6,800 items, including 3,400 LPs and 3,000 SPs.

These items remained in ARKO’s archive for nearly 40 years until May last year, when ARKO reopened Renaissance at its headquarters in Daehangno to share Pak’s trove of classical music and memorabilia with the public.

“I didn’t think people would come here just to listen to music. There are many good — even better — options for high-quality sound,” Kim Yeon-mi, the project manager, told The Korea Times. “Those who visit Renaissance want to experience the atmosphere of the 1960s through the ’80s. That’s what I tried to bring out while preparing for the opening.”

Beyond the music itself, visitors can take in the culture of listening through a small collection of artifacts, including the original Renaissance signboard, two towering JBL Hartsfield speakers, vintage amplifiers, an SP record player and archival documents.

However, Pak’s original LP and SP records are not physically on display.

“Records, especially SPs, are quite fragile and delicate to handle,” Kim explained, noting that Renaissance uses digitized recordings drawn from Pak’s collection to help preserve the originals.

Kim said that Renaissance in the 1970s and ’80s was a gathering place for musicians, artists and writers in Seoul. Frequent visitors included composers Kang Sukhi (1934-2020) and Paik Byung-dong. Maestro Chung Myung-whun and his musician sisters Myung-wha and Kyung-wha also frequented the listening lounge when they were in Seoul.

“Renaissance served as a source of inspiration for many. It also functioned as a hub for intellectual exchange, which gave it even deeper meaning,” Kim said.

Despite his role in cultivating Korea’s classical music culture, much about the donor himself remains under the veil. Little is known about Pak’s family, how he collected music records, what motivated him to keep Renaissance open or how he funded the salon.

“We usually conduct in-depth interviews to document information about donors, but the ARKO Arts Archive went through restructuring around the time of his donation and no one properly recorded his personal history,” she said.

Two years ago, ARKO discovered a new reference to Pak and Renaissance in Daegu in an English-language music magazine. “It’s believed the contributor was a U.S. military officer who had visited the salon,” Kim said.

Since reopening, ARKO’s Renaissance has drawn steady interest. While many visitors are older classical music fans revisiting a familiar music salon atmosphere, younger audiences are also discovering the space through social media.

Kim Min-kyung, 27, said she came after seeing the space on YouTube.

“I saw a video about Renaissance and wanted to see how it works,” she told The Korea Times on Jan. 20. “I didn’t know the music was in digital, but it was still good because you can still hear tiny noises. It feels like a museum where you can listen to music and see historic objects at the same time.”

Renaissance requires advance reservations through ARKO’s website, with bookings available in Korean.

The music salon is open Monday through Saturday, with three time slots per day: 10 a.m.-noon, noon-2 p.m. and 2-5 p.m. Visitors cannot choose the music; the playlist is preselected and listed in an on-site brochure as well as ARKO Artist House’s Instagram account, @arkoartisthouse.

While it’s free of charge until the end of January, Renaissance will request a 10,000 won donation from visitors starting in February.