Heartstrings | Seoul Institute of the Arts Ansan — The Campus That Played the Music School

The college in Heartstrings is not a backlot. It is a working arts campus on the south side of Ansan, and the drama treated the grounds as if they already knew how to hold a rehearsal.

Seoul Institute of the Arts moved its teaching campus here in 2001, to 171 Yesuldaehak-ro in Danwon-gu. Wikipedia pins the site at 37.3343 north, 126.8360 east. Line 4 to Jungang or Gojan, then a campus bus or a long walk along the arts-college road, is how you arrive. The buildings sit low against the Gyeonggi sky. Students still cross the same open courts with instrument cases and dance bags.

That is why the 2011 series could film Lee Shin tossing a necklace on a field of outdoor mirrors and have it look like a school instead of a set. Jung Yong-hwa's guitarist and Park Shin-hye's gayageum major needed a place where traditional music and a campus rock band could collide in the same afternoon. Ansan gave them that collision. Fan visits since then have stayed on the public edges of the campus. The school is still in session. You do not walk into classrooms.

Stand at the gate on a weekday and you hear practice rooms leak sound into the air. That leak is the drama's real location. The story asked a performing-arts college to look like one. This campus did not have to pretend.