Opened to public. ST International HQ and SongEun Art Space by Herzog & de Meuron
17/10/2021.
[Gangnam-gu] South Korea
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Project description by Herzog & de Meuron
A new home for SONGEUN and the people of Seoul
The new ST SONGEUN Building houses art spaces for the SONGEUN Art and Cultural Foundation – a non-profit organization established in 1989 – together with headquarter offices for ST International. Our experience designing contemporary museums increasingly focuses on how we can bring art and people together. How can we make a space that works for the art and the artist, for the curator and the public?
When Herzog & de Meuron was commissioned to design the new SONGEUN Art Space in 2016, the ambition was clear: to create a cultural anchor that invites the public and broadens the exposure of Korean artists to the international contemporary art scene. By offering non-commercial art spaces within one of the most commercial areas of Seoul, the project aims to strengthen SONGEUN's presence and significantly contribute to the city’s cultural topography and diversity.
A precise geometry in the heart of Cheongdam Dong
The site is located on the highest point of Dosan Daero, a thoroughfare located in Cheongdam Dong in southern Seoul, renowned for its international flagship stores, restaurants and bars. While the neighborhood mainly consists of low-rise buildings, the zoning allows for higher density towards the main street. Catalyzed by the area’s rapid transformation and densification, a myriad of volumetric strategies responding to various plot regulations sit along the street front.
A sharp triangular volume distinguishes the ST SONGEUN Building. Resulting from the envelope specified for the site, the building’s unified form maximizes the allotted floor area while exploring the sculptural potential of the zoning law. A tall front facade faces the main street and hosts the building’s core, and a low back facade faces the garden where a more intimate scale defines the surrounding neighborhood. With 11 stories aboveground and 5 floors underground, the completed building comprises over 8000 square meters.
A cultural anchor open to the city
The building expresses difference and openness despite, or rather because of, its hermetic street side. A cut out of the base invites visitors from the street to the main lobby and the intimate garden, open to the public at all times. At the entrance, a column wrapped in a seamless LED screen acts as an attractive lantern announcing current shows and a further place to present artistic content.
On the west side of the building, the car ramp is treated as a sculptural volume. The curve of the descending ramp carves an opening in the ceiling of the underground exhibition space, connecting this sunken gallery to the activity, sound, and light at street-level. With its concrete walls, this cave-like space contrasts with the reflective finishes of silver leaf lining the ramp’s interior and parking space beneath. The ramp spirals around a triple-height void and defines the geometry of the grand staircase which acts as both a threshold and auditorium space for screenings and lectures, leading to the second-floor galleries. An experimental and unexpected mix of art spaces, offices, and public areas unfolds above and below ground, creating a new urban complex that invites the public to engage with contemporary art in Seoul.
ST International HQ and SongEun Art Space by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Iwan Baan.
“Hidden Pine Tree”: a face for SONGEUN
Enhancing the facade’s continuous surface, the building is cut by only a few defining apertures. Two tall vertical windows puncture the south facade and create framed views of the city. A triangular opening spans between levels 3 to 8 on the east, while the rear is almost completely glazed behind a layer of balconies which bring light and air into the offices.
The concrete mass not only carries the entire structure but also defines all space and ornamental surfaces. Using larch plywood boards rotated in a 1-by-1 meter grid, the concrete facade is imprinted with wood grain patterns and expresses the meaning behind the name SONGEUN: “Hidden Pine Tree”. This unique texture invites the eye and hand to explore its different qualities, bringing the building’s urban presence down to a tactile human scale.
Herzog & de Meuron Architekten is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (born 1950), and Pierre de Meuron (born 1950), closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. They are perhaps best known for their conversion of the giant Bankside Power Station in London to the new home of the Tate Museum of Modern Art (2000). Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been visiting professors at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 1994 (and in 1989) and professors at ETH Zürich since 1999. They are co-founders of the ETH Studio Basel – Contemporary City Institute, which started a research programme on processes of transformation in the urban domain.
Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by five Senior Partners â Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach. An international team of 38 Associates and about 362 collaborators.
Herzog & de Meuron received international attention very early in their career with the Blue House in Oberwil, Switzerland (1980); the Stone House in Tavole, Italy (1988); and the Apartment Building along a Party Wall in Basel (1988). The firm’s breakthrough project was the Ricola Storage Building in Laufen, Switzerland (1987). Renown in the United States came with Dominus Winery in Yountville, California (1998). The Goetz Collection, a Gallery for a Private Collection of Modern Art in Munich (1992), stands at the beginning of a series of internationally acclaimed museum buildings such as the Küppersmühle Museum for the Grothe Collection in Duisburg, Germany (1999). Their most recognized buildings include Prada Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan (2003); Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany (2005); the new Cottbus Library for the BTU Cottbus, Germany (2005); the National Stadium Beijing, the Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China; VitraHaus, a building to present Vitra’s “Home Collection“, Weil am Rhein, Germany (2010); and 1111 Lincoln Road, a multi-storey mixed-use structure for parking, retail, a restaurant and a private residence in Miami Beach, Florida, USA (2010), the Actelion Business Center in Allschwil/Basel, Switzerland (2010). In recent years, Herzog & de Meuron have also completed projects such as the New Hall for Messe Basel Switzerland (2013), the Ricola Kräuterzentrum in Laufen (2014), which is the seventh building in a series of collaborations with Ricola, with whom Herzog & de Meuron began to work in the 1980s; and the Naturbad Riehen (2014), a public natural swimming pool. In April 2014, the practice completed its first project in Brazil: the Arena do Morro in the neighbourhood of Mãe Luiza, Natal, is the pioneering project within the wider urban proposal “A Vision for Mãe Luiza”.
Herzog & de Meuron have completed 6 projects since the beginning of 2015: a new mountain station including a restaurant on top of the Chäserrugg (2262 metres above sea level) in Toggenburg, Switzerland; Helsinki Dreispitz, a residential development and archive in Münchenstein/Basel, Switzerland; Asklepios 8 – an office building on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland; the Slow Food Pavilion for Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy; the new Bordeaux stadium, a 42’000 seat multifunctional stadium for Bordeaux, France; Miu Miu Aoyama, a 720 m² boutique for the Prada-owned brand located on Miyuki Street, across the road from Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.
In many projects the architects have worked together with artists, an eminent example of that practice being the collaboration with Rémy Zaugg, Thomas Ruff and with Michael Craig-Martin.
Professionally, the Herzog & de Meuron partnership has grown to become an office with over 120 people worldwide. In addition to their headquarters in Basel, they have offices in London, Munich and San Francisco. Herzog has explained, “We work in teams, but the teams are not permanent. We rearrange them as new projects begin. All of the work results from discussions between Pierre and me, as well as our other partners, Harry Gugger and Christine Binswanger. The work by various teams may involve many different talents to achieve the best results which is a final product called architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.”