SongEun Art Space

About this place

SongEun Art Space is Herzog & de Meuron's most recent completed building in Asia and one of the most spatially compelling new structures in Seoul. The 20-storey tower sits in Cheongdam-dong, surrounded by luxury retail and the offices of fashion conglomerates, and distinguishes itself from its context through a rigorous insistence on tectonic logic over decorative gesture. The building is organised as a stack of offset concrete floor plates that cantilever and recess alternately, creating deep shade on some facades while exposing the structural edge on others. The external concrete is unfinished — board-formed, with a texture that shifts between grey and near-black depending on weathering and light. The building refuses the glass-and-cladding surfaces of its neighbours entirely. The programme is split between a public cultural foundation (SongEun Art & Culture Foundation) occupying the lower floors, and the private offices of the Samsung family-affiliated Hanwha Group above. The gallery spaces on the lower floors are open to the public and support changing exhibitions of Korean contemporary art; the ground floor lobby and outdoor forecourt are publicly accessible. The building is best understood at close range: the structural logic of the cantilevers is legible from street level, the depth of the facade reveals itself as you walk the perimeter, and the unfinished concrete reads differently in morning and afternoon light. The surrounding streetscape of Cheongdam-dong provides an inadvertent foil — the tower's material seriousness standing against the surface-level spectacle of the luxury brands around it.