SPACE August 2025 (No. 693)
Tower lobby core (2024)
Dialogue Jung Yoonchun professor, Hongik University × Lee Dal-Ho senior associate principal, SOM × Jeong Woongab leader at Value-Add BU, Junglim Architecture
Once the Preoccupation of the Ideal City, Where is ‘Publicness’ Now?
Jung Yoonchun: I believe that the recent transformation of the LG Twin Towers (hereinafter Twin Towers)’s communal area on the lower levels was not just a simple remodeling, but rather an ‘architectural’ remodeling in response to the area’s changing context. I also find it interesting that the area is in Yeouido. When the original designer, SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), first designed the building, Yeouido was a wasteland.
Lee Dal-Ho: Only a few film-based photos remained in SOM, giving people an idea of what Yeouido was like at the time. These were photos of the site taken before construction began and showed the surrounding area as nothing but a wasteland. It was literally an empty, barren land. As there was no such type of building complex as a headquarters in Korea at the time, it was important for the present design team to understand the original designer’s vision of and concept for a headquarters.
Jung Yoonchun: That is precisely what informs this project. At a time when Yeouido was envisaged as ‘Korea’s Manhattan’, but still existed only on paper, SOM must have had to design ideal architecture befitting the image of an ideal city that did not yet exist. However, the original plan for Yeouido as an ideal city had been derailed, and the area lacked the urban context to accommodate such architecture. I think this resulted in many parts of SOM’s initial proposal being unadmitted. Today’s Yeouido is different, though. How did you interpret the relationship between Yeouido’s sense of place and the Twin Towers? Personally, I felt that this remodeling revived the original intentions of the initial design proposal.
Lee Dal-Ho: I find Yeouido’s sense of place interesting. Unlike Jongno, which has maintained a relatively stable environment and consistent urban fabric over time, Ye...
