The Seoul Metropolitan Government opened the 18th Seoul Architecture Festival (SAF) on Monday, expanding the event to nearly a month, from Tuesday to Oct. 11, at the Seoul Hall of Urbanism & Architecture in Jung District, central Seoul. The festival, which showcases Korean architecture and lets residents engage directly with the field, ran for two weeks last year and drew 19,505 visitors. The city said it hopes to draw more than 40,000 this year. This year's edition, "Assembling Seoul: Discovering Seoul," explores how Seoul's overlapping histories, places, cultures and people come together to shape the city today. It is organized around three concepts: hybrid density, rapid evolution and glocality — a blend of "global" and "local." The centerpiece exhibit, "Discovering Seoul," is a collaboration between festival director Kook Hyoung-gul and photographer Shin Kyung-sub, who assembled recycled wooden pallets into a maze-like structure to display Shin's photographs of the city's architecture. The festival also displays works by the winners of the 44th Seoul Architecture Awards. The grand