SEOUL · STARFIELD LIBRARY

Starfield Library: Choosing the Tall-Shelf Scene Again, on Foot

Maya Walks In from Samseong Station Without Ever Going Up to Street Level, and Chooses Again, over Two Floors, the Scene of Towering Bookshelves She Once Saved from a Screen

Part two of “Gangnam & Songpa.” Starfield Library, in the middle of Starfield COEX Mall, fills 2,800 square metres over two floors with a 13-metre-high wall of shelves, and it’s free for anyone to use. Maya saved this shelf on a screen long before she came. This time she goes on foot and chooses the scene again.

Guided by Maya · Last checked: 2026-09-29 · 7 min read

Tall curved wooden bookshelves filled with books rising beneath a white lattice ceiling and glass windows. People small and distant. No lettering. Editorial image.

PlaceSeoul Gangnam

How to get there

2Line 2Sports ComplexSamseongSeolleung

Samseong Station Exit 5·6Direct passage · Millennium Plaza → Starfield Library

9Line 9Samseong JungangBongeunsaSports Complex

Bongeunsa Station Exit 7Direct passage · ASEM Plaza → Starfield Library

Starfield COEX Mall: through the passage linked directly to Samseong Exits 5 and 6, via Millennium Plaza. Bongeunsa Exit 7 also links directly by passage, via ASEM Plaza.

This is the second part of “Gangnam & Songpa.” In part one Elena walked through Bongeunsa Temple, and today Maya heads into the middle of Starfield COEX Mall in the same neighbourhood of Samseong-dong. After the temple, the library.

Maya is someone who picked her Seoul on screen first. She keeps a list of scenes from dramas and videos, then goes to each place on foot and chooses again. One of the oldest lines on that list reads: “A small figure in front of shelves that reach the ceiling.” Almost every scene she saved was the same shot — taken from the foot of the shelves, looking up.

Eleven o’clock on a weekday morning. On the first line of her notebook Maya writes: “Same shelves, one more time, from somewhere else.”

From Samseong Station, without going up to the street

Starfield COEX Mall directions: enter through the passage linked directly to Exits 5 and 6 of Samseong Station (Line 2) and into the mall via Millennium Plaza. Alternatively, use the passage linked directly to Exit 7 of Bongeunsa Station (Line 9), via ASEM Plaza.

Starfield COEX Mall’s directions say to come in through the passage linked directly to Exits 5 and 6 of Samseong Station on Line 2, and to enter the mall by way of Millennium Plaza. Exit 7 of Bongeunsa Station on Line 9 also leads straight into a connecting passage, which comes in through ASEM Plaza. The library’s own website places it at the centre of COEX Mall. Find on a map

A woman in a white T-shirt and navy overshirt with a crossbody bag walks, seen side-on, along a wide, bright underground passage with plain walls and a polished floor, linking the station and the mall. Editorial image. — Maya walking from the connecting passage towards the middle of the mall

Maya follows the connecting passage into the mall. There was no passage in any of her saved scenes — on screen, it always began in front of the shelves. So Maya follows the signs inside the mall and decides to note down the moment she first meets the shelves.

In front of the 13-metre shelves

Starfield Library website: the concept is a comfortable study softly wrapped in the gentle light of 13-metre-high shelves, with tables of various kinds and power sockets for laptop work.

The library’s website describes the idea behind the space as a comfortable study, softly wrapped in the gentle light of 13-metre-high shelves. There are tables of different kinds, it says, and power sockets so people can work on laptops. Find on a map

Tall wooden bookshelves seen from below, with an escalator running diagonally beside them. People small and distant. No lettering. Editorial image. — A wall of books seen from the foot of the shelves, with an escalator running alongside

Maya holds the scene she saved up against the shelves in front of her. On screen, the shelves never ended: the shot was cropped tight from the bottom looking up, so the top was always out of frame. In person, the shelves do end. What you get instead is the spines growing smaller, row by row, all the way up.

She lifts her phone and tries the same framing once — from the bottom, pointing up, tight. There it is, the shot from the screen, exactly. But take one step back and everything that was outside the frame comes in at once. Maya lowers the phone without taking the picture. Today she came for what’s outside the frame.

Published photographs of the library show an escalator running at an angle alongside the shelves, and above them a white lattice ceiling and tall windows. None of that was in her saved scene. In her notebook Maya writes her first correction: “The shelves don’t stand alone. There are moving stairs beside them.”

Waist-up side view of a woman looking up at tall bookshelves. Editorial image. — Maya looking up at the shelves and comparing them with the scene she saved

Around 70,000 books and some 600 magazines

Starfield Library website: a collection of around 70,000 books in total.

According to the website, Starfield Library holds a collection of around 70,000 books. There’s a foreign-language section and a section of shelves curated by well-known people, and the website singles out its magazine corner — some 600 titles, including magazines from abroad — as what sets it apart from an ordinary library. Find on a map

On screen, the books were background: a pattern of small coloured dots making up a wall. Up close, every one of those dots has a title. Rather than pulling out a book, Maya stands at the lower shelves and first traces where the spines in languages she can read are gathered. The line on the website about a separate foreign-language section suddenly becomes useful.

Long wooden tables and chairs on the lower floor beneath tall bookshelves. People small and distant. Editorial image. — Wooden tables on the lower floor beneath the shelves

Two floors, choosing again from above

Starfield Library website: the library occupies a total of 2,800 m² (about 850 pyeong) on two levels at the centre of COEX Mall.

The website introduces Starfield Library as a two-floor space of 2,800 square metres at the centre of COEX Mall. The ground floor in particular (the first floor, in Korean numbering), it says, is a separate space where you can read at your leisure while looking out over the sunken area on the basement level below. Find on a map

Tables on the lower floor and curved bookshelves, seen down over an upper-floor railing. People small. Editorial image. — The lower floor and the shelves, seen from the upper-floor railing

Every scene on Maya’s list had been shot from the lower floor. As she rides the escalator beside the shelves, the rows of books slide slowly past her and fall away — an angle that wasn’t in any of the scenes she saved. Upstairs, she goes close to the railing and looks down. The people at the tables below grow small, and the shelves that were a wall from below look, from up here, more like a fence around a room.

Look up, and the white lattice ceiling covers the shelves. From below, her gaze always stopped at the top of the shelves and never got this far. The spot the screen chose was a place for looking up. The spot Maya has chosen on foot is a place for looking down. She writes her second correction: “From above, you can see between the shelves.”

Looking up at a white lattice ceiling and windows above tall wooden bookshelves. No people. Editorial image. — The white lattice ceiling and tall windows above the shelves

A library where you don’t have to read

Starfield Library website: you are welcome to read at Starfield Library — or not to bother reading at all. It also serves as a place to meet and wait for someone.

The website has a line that says, more or less, that at Starfield Library you’re welcome to read a book — or not to bother reading at all. It also describes the library as a place where people meet and wait for one another, and lists book-themed events such as author talks, poetry readings and book concerts. Find on a map

Opening hours, according to the website, are 10:30 to 22:00, and anyone can use the library free of charge. Korea Tourism Organization listings say it’s open every day of the year.

Maya sits for a moment at the end of a table on the lower floor. She doesn’t open a book. She opens her notebook, and before deciding on the next line of her list, she reads over the two lines she corrected today. As the website puts it, it’s the kind of place where someone reading and someone waiting for a friend can share a table without it seeming odd. Maya adds one more line, as an editorial suggestion: “Don’t photograph people who are reading. Keep your voice down.”

A woman sitting at the end of a wooden table, opening a small notebook, with bookshelves behind her. Editorial image. — Maya sitting at the end of a table on the lower floor, opening her notebook

Towards midday, Maya looks at the whole wall of shelves once more from the far end of the upper floor. The scene she saved on screen was a single shot. What she has chosen again on foot comes to three things: the wood-coloured shelves she first met after the connecting passage, the shelves standing with an escalator running beside them, and the tables between the shelves, seen from above. The screen let her choose the scene. Her feet let her choose what comes before and after it.

Maya doesn’t cross out that line on her list. She writes another one beside it: “Not a place to look up at — a place to stay.” In the next part, Noah crosses into Songpa and goes up Lotte World Tower to Seoul Sky.

A wide indoor view with a small woman seen from behind at the end of an upper floor, facing enormous bookshelves. Editorial image. — Around midday, Maya looking at the whole wall of shelves from the far end of the upper floor

(※ This article includes staged images created with AI.)

Try it on your own morning

An editorial suggestion: walk in through the connecting passage from Samseong Station Exits 5 or 6, or Bongeunsa Station Exit 7, look up once from the foot of the shelves, look down once from the upper floor, then sit at a table for a while — reading or not. We don’t review individual shops in the mall.

Today’s route

A diagram of the order only · not to scale, orientation or the actual shape of the streets.

Through the passage from Samseong Exits 5 and 6 — According to Starfield COEX Mall, the passage links directly to the exits and passes through Millennium Plaza. Bongeunsa Exit 7 also connects by passage. Find on a map
Look up from the foot of the shelves — These are the 13-metre-high shelves described on the library’s website. Find on a map
Look down from the upper floor — The website describes the ground floor as a place to read while looking over the sunken basement level. Find on a map
Sit at a table for a while — The library says you don’t have to read. Don’t photograph people who are reading, and keep it quiet. Find on a map

Visitor information

Getting there

Starfield COEX Mall directionsChecked 2026.09.29

enter through the passage linked directly to Exits 5 and 6 of Samseong Station (Line 2) and into the mall via Millennium Plaza. Alternatively, use the passage linked directly to Exit 7 of Bongeunsa Station (Line 9), via ASEM Plaza.