After being commissioned in 2016, OMA recently completed the sixth and largest location for upscale South Korean department store Galleria in Gwanggyo, a new town just south of Seoul. The building features multi-faceted glass protruding from a textured mosaic stone facade, which echoes the landscape of the neighboring Suwon Gwanggyo Lake Park. This distinct stone-like appearance “makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo,” OMA says.
As visitors walk along the public route that was “excavated” from the stone building, they will encounter retail spaces and cultural activities like exhibitions and performances that form a “Public Loop.” They can also peer through the multi-faceted glass facade to see views of Gwanggyo. The route eventually leads to a roof garden.
The project was led by OMA Partner Chris van Duijn, Associate Ravi Kamisetti, and Project Architect Patrizia Zobernig. Gansam served as local executive architect.
Find project drawings in the gallery below.
But did you guys realize that from the back it looks kinda like a turtle?! I love it!
All 31 Comments
Never a good sign when all the energy and money spent on the stairway spaces (nice), while the rest is covered in a MagicEye tarp (ugly).
Many will trick themselves into thinking this is good. But ugly is ugly. And OMA is long past the late 90s.
Further, its kind of sad that the great OMA is just another clickbait faux-design agency
I like it
I like it
I like it
I like it a lot.
Woof.
I look forward to buildings that challenge my sense of what architecture is and what it can do. I'm not sure this one does much for either.
There is a tradition here, and I'm reminded of Levete and Kaplicky's Selfridges, 16 years ago, at least in this respect, that the design's primary motive is to call attention to itself—and draw shoppers in. That's a neutral statement. Some might see virtue, others cause for criticism. If either is "iconic," however, it is an iconology that has no substance or system and its essence is only commercial. Cultural historians may want to step in later.
“. . . makes it a natural point of gravity for public life in Gwanggyo”—I'm still trying to decide what that means and why OMA chose that wording. It is "natural" in some refined, ironic sense. Or it isn't.
The mosaic "echoing" the nearby landscape—I wouldn't have known that unless told. The heavy pixelation obscures the representation. OMA's doing something and at the same time not doing something. I'm sure there's a point or a non-point in that, but the facade, at least from pictures, just looks muddy.
And I haven't been able to move away from my first impression, that the spiraling staircase looks like an excrescence, something that oozes out from the mass of the facade, as if squeezed. What is the metaphor here and why should we care about it, not be pointlessly disturbed?
We live in a world so distant in its ironies that we float free of reference, where we make wry jokes without a punchline. This gets tedious.
But once more, context doesn't give the architect much to work with.
feels like something got stuck in my teeth -
or
this parametric tool is so cool, we don't need no effort to build around it.
ugly is ugly
But did you guys realize that from the back it looks kinda like a turtle?! I love it!
yes, a turtle with so
me intestinal issues
It’s all fun and games until “neon puke” becomes the federal style
this is perfect
vomit.
i like it a lot.
Those in favor say "I like it"...next!
Speak sheeple, speak!
And people still wonder how Trump could be elected President....
Nobody wonders about mass stupidity.
Democrats have incredibly low IQs so don't try to figure it out.
Its garbage but thats why I like it.
I hope OMA/AMO doesn't come up with a bullshit monograph to sell this design now.
"Its garbage but thats why I like it."
People complain about fake news and hucksters like Trump, yet the group think exhibited here is drenched in this kind of cynicism. The public would think this is garbage, but we are better than the public. We are progressive!
i'm not better than the public. i just care about architecture more than they do.
No youe are not.
I understand the "Its garbage but thats why I like it." take differently.
There are a lot of buildings that I don't really like, that I definitely wouldn't have designed, but that I'm glad exist because I like the conversations they inspire and the sort of... I'm not sure how to put it into words but the sort of unexpected whimsy it inflicts upon an otherwise uniform public realm.
Obviously very few buildings should be this loud, but a few should.
Point taken.
right. this is how i feel about most of the music i don't listen to. live and let live.
McDonalds, Bud Light, and the Fast and Furious all exist for a reason. Pushing the envelope isn't that reason. The folks around here would probably rather discuss the envelope-pushing examples instead of sitting around having a discussion about why Taco Bell is awesome. They also don't have an issue with it existing, but not EVERY food has to be Taco Bell.
I'm confused, is OMA Taco Bell? No, that seems backwards.
Taco Bell Cantina. Live Mas.
It just looks lazy. Ugliness I can take if its well resolved but that bit of escalator sticking out is just ... not good. Not to mention the pattern of those tiles and the glazed guts.
I am not writing this to break the news or anything, but for certain, this architecture has been inside the most popular architectural curriculum for a long while. Beyond the humorous readings of these rendered visualizations, the reading is really clear with glass and marble made ant farm section. It is also good to know experienced firm like OMA would definitely make it with a strong diagram wrapped around it in exciting program/space/branding trio. For me somewhat recalling their Prada store on Rodeo Dr.
I don't want to write it off, even we have seen many examples of these formal moves. For me it is a copy of many copies but the final copy is generated by the same authors. A full circle for OMA.
Id be interested in a road map of the copies. Honestly interested, but it's a large undertaking.
Seconded, that could be an interesting critical feature, in fact!
I'd also be curious also as a creative person who runs with themes and evolves ideas. I just want to point out that these intellectual gyrations, interesting as they might be to us, hold little or no interest to the public for which we build. That fact in no way discounts their importance to the act of creation, but we should keep in mind that to rely on them for interest rather than the built form is malpractice. Now if you think the public is stupid, just think of people in your own family. Be empathetic.
...and that O and Sneaky would be actual architectural journalism, please do carry on.
Seem like good people to me.
those are photos m8, not rendered visualizations
Oh, are they? Then, photographic visualizations, homes: thank you.
which just proves Orhan's point m8. unless i'm misunderstanding what as noted above would be a good archinect FEATURE.
Plagiarized from HOK.
bitmap image --> facade strategy is complete shit and should not be celebrated. it's like Bjarke Ingels said in a recent interview, what the fuck are you even doing at OMA?
I’d love to hear a thoughtful explanation from someone who likes this architecture, about what it is they like about it, and why something like this is a good thing for society and its urbanism.
it's good because you don't like it
I never said whether I liked it or not.
with a glance at the surrounding and some familiarity with the built landscape of modern S Korea, I look at this as a particular reaction against the banality of rigorously planned, formulaic, yet comfortable buildings. There is a bit of contempt in it, but it's a vigorous contempt, and self-aware. Shopping malls are ephemeral buildings, and this facade is designed to be provocative, memorable, and temporary. it's more functional to make it a bit unlikable so that no one will resist changing it when the time comes.
For centuries in Korea, a rendering of a mountain and river (called Sansu in Korean) has always been more than a beautiful landscape; it is also a profound philosophical and spiritual statement. Heaven, Earth, and Humanity are represented, by the mountain, river, and human figures, respectively.
Imagine this building with a more detailed and delicate landscape, such as the one above, which has a river that is actually a course of windows spiraling up around it but which are subtly articulated and embedded. Some might find such a building gimmicky or sentimental. But it could be tastefully done, and I'd like to see it. A tradition would be preserved, and the bland cityscape would get an esthetic lift, along with a memory, perhaps inspiration. At any rate, we'd get a different crowd here, or different responses.
OMA does look at context, and that building, in fact, determines theirs in that it takes such a premise and does not give it to us, not without displacing it a bit or juicing or roughing it up.
Images, in the large, coarse tiles, barely approach representation. Instead they look like brown noise. The river is distended and protrudes in prismatic bulges, using, btw, the same triangle shape as the tiles though much larger and the contrast in scale is marked and works against integration. In place of verse comment we get the Galleria—the lower case t in "the" is an attempt at a personal and intimate touch—clearly and prominently, at the top, without obfuscation, in western letters. This much is clear and tops the hierarchy, the store's name. Forget about heaven.
To say the building is ugly is merely to describe it. It is grotesque. It tries to be grotesque. Natural forms have been distorted and exaggerated for effect.
Perhaps OMA is making a statement in realizing how far away we are today from such an ideal vision, from the past that conceived it, and can only refer to it with irony that here broaches sarcasm. At any rate, it is not an attempt to preserve a tradition. Past and present are shown in jarring contrast. That leads to the question why they would do this—but answers are not what OMA gives, and there may not be any. We can't handle philosophy or religion anymore. I can take such moves in literature and the visual arts, often with appreciation, but in architecture, where creations are for the public, visible in an urban center, and meant to last, they seem out of place. I would like someone make an argument that OMA isn't jerking things around for the sake of jerking things around. At any rate, it's hard to see a present in the building we can live with, much less a future.
I don't know, actually, that OMA is so commercially motivated. Rather corporations eat this stuff up, along with the OMA brand, and keep awarding contracts. There's a point where it's hard to sort motives out or separate builders from movers and shakers.
make this man an architect critic already damnit!
According to OMA, the mosaic is meant to “evoke the nature of” the nearby park, which, of course, is hilly, not mountainous. But a Korean park, I’m sure, is built on associations and traditions, likely similar. And the building necessitates a flattened, vertical perspective. But as in the painting above, such perspective is common in Asian art and has its own associations about nature and spirit. Then there is the similar monochromatic coloration. I don’t think my comparison is off and wouldn’t be surprised there is direct reference.
Purely from a design standpoint, there is the problem of how to keep this from just being a monolithic picture block. The protruding water is one solution to break the space up and add visual interest. It succeeds in this, loudly.
The building also makes a comment on beauty, or the lack of it, or questions it, or gives us an oblique variant, and urban life.
“Reading” OMA (does Koolhaas get the credit?) is like reading philosophy—dry, wry, problematic, reaching and baffling. I kind of like this, I find it tedious. At any rate, the work cannot be easily absorbed or easily dismissed, which is something.
actually the building is pretty good in context. the professional photos make it look out of place. video
By what criteria do you think the building is good in context? I’m wondering what you think the context is, and what you think the building does to respond to it.
none of the surrounding buildings look like crystalline jelly is oozing out of them, so this design stands out
The first images I saw from far away looked like it was almost dirty.. some sort of sand/ concrete surface. I also think the main photograph that has gone around has not been doing it justice. The corner photograph should be the one that they're sending around. The scale of it is also not obvious from the initial photos.. the interior ones start to give a sense of how big this is and I think change a bit of the perspective.
It seems to me (without reading any explanations from OMA) that it's the section of a rock with a the circulation being a vein of gold or something similar going through. The circulation has become the focal point here rather than being hidden.. possible making people want to walk up stairs.. rather than the alternative of fire stairs that would be seen in most retail environments. Thinking about most malls.. Retail environments don't typically have windows..so to forgo them in a lot of instances here doesn't seem all that big a deal.. and also since the stairs and windows go between levels you can use that to bring light into the core which is the shops..
Since it's a multi-level shopping mall (or just one store?) having the core in the middle (freight elevators/ back of house hallways) makes a lot of sense... and having stores radiate off of that (or between two sets of stores/ departments)? (the plan seems to have an atrium? hard to tell) but the concept of essentially having BOH still would make sense in that way... Bring light in from the slit of the circulation and atrium.
My first reaction was that it was hideous.. but the close-up of the tile is actually gorgeous. The circulation is basically Seattle's Library put on the outside.. the glass morphing thing is basically Parson's building on 14th street by SOM... so there's not too much new here on first glance. I'm not a huge fan of OMA or Rem because I think their buildings are almost all surface to me.. they make up for wild moves that are expensive by using cheaper materials than they should at times and that aren't made for commercial use (especially flooring). (Although, I was in Seattle recently and the building is impressive and I really enjoyed walking through the collection of books and feeling that space... especially the main reading room...so you barely notice how some of the graphic flooring has worn through.)
I've also spent a lot of time in malls recently.. I've been flying around the country (pre-corona) measuring various retail spaces in Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville, Philly, Houston, Scottsdale etc. and have looked at a lot of awful, banal design with little thought for circulation in many of those malls.. their exteriors are usually really cheap materials with no cohesion at all that are basically beige stucco with no windows. Almost all BOH hallways are on the exterior behind the shops and there are no windows except for typically a skylight in the atrium. So in that sense this is quite a step up.. even though it's not most people's taste.
This is what it looks like to give up
The only thing this shows is the ultimate limitations of the big box typology. Early OMA projects like IIT and SPL succeeded with raw and cheap materials because the composition was complete inside and out. Here about 90% is preconceived while the remaining surface and circulation is overwrought. I see the same surface treatment and protruding glass in many new malls. It's not pushing design forward as much as it is reflecting the lowest common denominator cynically (with a wink, as to say "we are actually above this commercial stuff" -- but you really aren't. I'd take most of that over this anyday).
Time was you could put Macy's in small letters on a tasteful, refined, and formal building with classical overtones and the people would come. Shopping was an elevated event in which they were invited to participate. They dressed up when they went.
No more. Black out the Galleria in the picture above and consider what assumptions OMA had to work with, what the owners likely wanted:
Given the challenges now to retail, the large scale of megastores, and changes in the culture, the project has to stand out and attract attention to draw shoppers in. In this respect, the Galleria is more restrained that the Selfridges, in my comment above.
It has to be an event space where people will come and gather regardless—and hopefully buy something.
Our lives are much more informal, and buyers are in the driver's seat. Also they bore easily and need a thrill.
We have a mix of international codes and customs, ephemeral, difficult to sort out, freed of moorings. The Galleria at least makes a nod to scene and past.
Restrained modernism won't do either—it's been around for a century and no longer impresses with novelty and purity.
Meanwhile, architects who want the attention and big projects have to do something to attract attention and make themselves stand out. The genuine desire to innovate, egotism, vanity—these territories have a fuzzy border.
Also I think we're in a strange phase in architecture. So much done the last century, and challenged, and jerked around, so much let go, so much uncertain in the world and up for grabs. I don't think we know where we are.
This building could be a springboard for all kinds of discussion.
I give the building this much credit, that I keep coming back to it. It raises questions and makes me think about it, and that is something. And, as usual, I have second thoughts and approach appreciating it.
There's an interesting idea here, that as customers visit and ascend, they are also, in a sense, going for a walk through the park. I don't know how much the mosaic corresponds to features of the park, but they will be able to recognize features that I cannot. Also they will be able to look out on the city, including, presumably, the park for comparison. It is a meaningful experience, one of ascension. The images will bring memories and cultural associations that I guess at above. Nature and culture are brought to an otherwise abstract cityscape that has only sparse cultural association.
Other parts add interest, obliquely, oddly—the vertical slits, the portholes—which take us from pat assumptions about the building. The images on the mosaic have to be modernized and abstracted, and rendered in architectural form. I just wish they weren't so rough—and dirty looking.
It fits in with the grid of the downtown and breaks from it—a nice dialog.
I still can't get past the oozing water and want it toned down. It, again, is grotesque, not subtly evocative. I can't think of any way to justify it, figuratively or architecturally, aside from breaking up the cube. But I'm sure everybody will want to walk through the large intestine hanging out over the street.
its ok. not amazing. there is no requirement for external features so they reduced the facade to a drawing. And then added a bit of movement because its painful to not have some kind of signal of a public life showing on the exterior (more than Macy's did).
Conceptually its a commercial version of the Dutch Embassy in Berlin. Nice that they revisited it, though I found it not so convincing even in its original incarnation - the program doesn't quite fit, needing lots of people to make any sense. Perhaps in this case its better than in Berlin, as far as the logic of people moving goes but beyond that, not much to talk about. Grotesque, sure, but who cares. That's the type.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.