Department store Galleria, designed by OMA / Chris van Duijn, has opened in Gwanggyo, a new city located 25 km south away from Seoul in Gyeonggi province, South Korea.

Located at the center of this young urban development surrounded by tall residential towers, the Galleria’s stone-like appearance makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo.
“With a public loop deliberately designed for cultural offerings, Galleria in Gwanggyo is a place where visitors engage with architecture and culture as they shop. They leave with a unique retail experience blended with pleasant surprises after each visit.”
OMA Partner Chris van Duijn

Gwanggyo store is the sixth branch of Galleria—Korea’s largest upscale department store franchise founded in the 1970s. OMA / Chris van Duijn designed the project sculpted as a stone volume with a textured mosaic stone façade, the building evokes the nature of its neighbouring Suwon Gwanggyo Lake Park. A public route is excavated from the stone volume and connects the public side walk to a roof garden—to include both retail and cultural activities. It introduces an innovative element to the traditional typology of a department store.

The public route has a multifaceted glass façade that contrasts with the opacity of the stone. Through the glass, retail and cultural activities inside are revealed to the city’s passers-by, while visitors in the interior acquire new vantage points to experience Gwanggyo. Formed with a sequence of cascading terraces, the public loop offers spaces for exhibitions and performances.

“The Public Loop entwines Gwanggyo and the Galleria by making visible and tangible the activities of shopping typically hidden from the city.”
OMA Associate Ravi Kamisetti
 

Project description by OMA

The Galleria is Korea’s first and largest upscale department store franchise founded in the 1970s, and has remained at the forefront of the premium retail market in the country since then. The store in Gwanggyo—a new town just south of Seoul—is the sixth branch of Galleria. Located at the center of this young urban development surrounded by tall residential towers, the Galleria’s stone-like appearance makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo.

The store is located between the Suwon Gwanggyo Lake Park and ubiquitous buildings in the city: an intersection between nature and the urban environment. The store has a textured mosaic stone façade that evokes nature of the neighbouring park. Appearing as a sculpted stone emerging from the ground, the store is a visual anchor in the city.

The public route has a multifaceted glass façade that contrasts with the opacity of the stone. Through the glass, retail and cultural activities inside are revealed to the city’s passers-by, while visitors in the interior acquire new vantage points to experience Gwanggyo. Formed with a sequence of cascading terraces, the public loop offers spaces for exhibitions and performances.

A place where retail and culture, city and nature collide, Galleria in Gwanggyo offers a get away from the predictability of shopping.

More information

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Architects
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OMA. Partner in Charge.- Chris van Duijn. Associate.- Ravi Kamisetti. Project leader.- Patrizia Zobernig.
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Project Team
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Concept phase.- Mark Bavoso, Alan Lau, James Lee, Slobodan Radoman, Tianyu Su, John Thurtle.
Schematic design.- Mark Bavoso, James Lee, John Thurtle
Design development.- Ikki Kondo, James Lee, Daan Ooievaar, Slobodan Radoman, John Thurtle.
Interior Design.- Nils Axen, Simon Bastien, Tommaso Bernabo, Minjung Cho, Felicia Gambino, Nicola Ho, Meng Huang, Zhenke Jin, Richard Leung, Ioana Pricop, Junsik Oh, Calvin Yue.
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Collaborators
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Executive Architect.- Gansam.
Facade Consultant.- VS-A.
Curtain wall consultant (smart node).- Withworks.
Model Maker.- Edelsmid Emile Estourgie with Yasuhito Hirose and Made by Mistake, RJ Models.
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Contractor
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Hanwha Engineering&Construction corp.
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Dates
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Commission, 2016; SD, 2016; DD, 2017; CD, 2017, CA 2018; Interior Design 2018.
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Area
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Above Ground.- 73,721m²
Below Ground.- 63,492m²
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Photography
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Model Photographer.- Frans Parthesius.
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

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Chris van Duijn joined OMA in 2000 and is based in Rotterdam. He has been involved in many of OMA’s most renowned projects including Universal Studios in Los Angeles, the Prada stores in New York and Los Angeles (2001), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005) and the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012). Recently completed projects include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015) and the Garage Museum of Contemporary in Moscow (2015).

In addition to large-scale and complex projects, he has worked on interiors and small-scale projects including private houses, product design, and temporary structures such as the Prada Transformer in Seoul (2009).

Currently he is overseeing the design of the Axel Springer Campus in Berlin and the Jean Jacques Bosc Bridge in Bordeaux, the construction of the Parc des Expositions in Toulouse and the Bibliothèque Multimédia à Vocation Régionale in Caen, as well as product development projects.

Chris holds a Master of Architecture from the Technical University of Delft.
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Published on: March 25, 2020
Cite: "Evoking the nature of Suwon Gwanggyo Park. New Galleria store by OMA" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/evoking-nature-suwon-gwanggyo-park-new-galleria-store-oma> ISSN 1139-6415
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