Parc.1

Parc1 is a group of buildings in Yeouido, Seoul's island business district, designed by the British architect Richard Rogers. It has two office towers, one 333 meters tall with 69 floors and one 256 meters tall with 53 floors. Between them lies a big department store, The Hyundai Seoul, and a hotel, the Fairmont Ambassador Seoul, completes the group.

The towers are easy to spot from afar because their cut-back corners are climbed by bright red steel frames. Building took many years, from 2008 to 2020, because work stopped for a long time. The whole project cost about 1.5 billion US dollars.

Built on an old parking lot

The site was a parking lot next to Yeouido Park, about 46,000 square meters in size. The project cost about 1.5 billion US dollars. Construction started in 2008 with Samsung C&T as the builder.

In 2010 a legal fight with the owner of the land, the Unification Church, stopped the work when Tower A had reached only the 12th floor. Court rulings favored the developer, and work started again in January 2017.

The towers today

The finished complex opened in 2020. Tower A is one of the tallest buildings in Seoul. Companies such as NH Investment & Securities and LG Energy Solution have offices there.

Richard Rogers is also known for the Pompidou Centre in Paris, a building with its pipes and frames on the outside. The red frames of Parc1 show a similar love of showing how a building stands up.

On the globe

The model shows two towers with red steel frames at their corners, with the department store between them.