This 35-storey headquarters tower for the Dongbu Corporation is placed in Seoul’s southern commercial district in Kangnam-ku. Because the site is directly close to the Posco building, which sets back from the main commercial boulevard of Teheran-Ro, its corner forms a significant boundary to one of Seoul’s busiest intersections. Kohn Pederson Fox designs the project from the argument that the major forces internal to the program, as well as those external to the building, could be best articulated in a layered organization of the core, displaced to the south as an east-west line segment due to the small size of the floor plate.

Views of the Han River to the north were preserved. Teheran-Ro, and a historically significant garden, also preserved. The Dongbu Financial Centre concept of ‘layering’ was inspired from traditional Korean handicrafts such as shik-tak-bo, in which pieces of cloth are randomly patched together. The building’s services were layered vertically by means of an organizational core.

To distinguish the building from its surrounding rectangular neighbours, an organic design approach was used rather than the predominating geometric idiom. The diagonally folding expanses of curtain wall satisfy the client’s wish to make a bold sculptural statement. The result is a north facing elevation characterized by a series of separate zones, each of which is canted to reflect a different part of the sky. It terminates in soaring vectors of stainless steel.

Because the glass of the north and south facade is somewhat reflective, which is a collection of slightly canted surfaces, each reflecting a different part of the sky and surrounding cityscape, then the east and west facades is more transparent, giving the eastern facade a graphically present character that invites entry from the corner. The main entrance, to the east, consists of a bridge crossing a sunken garden and penetrates the eastern curtain wall from the side. Flanking the bridge and the lobby to the north is a wall of textured glass whose patterns resemble shik-tak-bo cloths. This wall is a kind of light filter, which links between the experience of entry and the activity of the street.

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