National Assembly Building

This guide to the National Assembly Building in Seoul returns to just after midnight on December 3, 2024, when soldiers carrying rifles broke through the windows here trying to reach the chamber where lawmakers were about to vote, hours after the president declared martial law for the first time in decades. It follows the roughly three hundred special forces troops who landed by helicopter, and the staff who barricaded the plenary hall's doors with furniture and fire extinguishers. It also traces the architect first hired to design this building in 1960, who walked away rather than let officials rewrite his plans.