MVRDV has completed a new 2-building art-entertainment complex in close proximity to Seoul’s Incheon Airport, in South Korea. The most distinguished features of the complex are composed of three key elements: the buildings include imprints of the façade features of surrounding buildings, lifted entrances, and a golden entrance spot covering one corner of the nightclub building.

Named The Imprint, the new complex includes a 6,200-square-metre nightclub in one building and indoor theme park in the other. The project was developed as part of the larger Paradise City complex of 6 buildings in total, which will provide a full suite of entertainment and hotel attractions less than a kilometre away from South Korea’s largest airport. 

"Given the proposed programme of the 2 buildings – a nightclub and indoor theme park – the client required a design with no windows, yet one that still integrated with the other buildings in the complex," said MVRDV. 

"The design of The Imprint therefore arises from a simple question: can we design an expressive façade that connects with its surroundings even though it has no windows?," added the studio.

The buildings project the façades of the surrounding buildings onto the complex, which are 'draped' over the simple building forms and plazas like a shadow, and 'imprinted' as a relief pattern onto the façades.

"By placing, as it were, surrounding buildings into the facades of our buildings and in the central plaza, we connect The Imprint with the neighbours," said Winy Maas, principal and co-founder of MVRDV. 

"This ensures coherence. Paradise City is not a collection of individual objects such as Las Vegas, but a real city."

In order to achieve the desired 'imprint' of the surrounding buildings, the façade of The Imprint is constructed of glass-fibre reinforced concrete panels. 

The architects used 3,869 unique panels on the facade arrangement, the construction required moulds to be individually produced using MVRDV’s 3D modelling files from the design phase. Once installed, these panels were painted white in order to emphasise the relief in the design.

"Two months ago most of the cladding was done and client said, 'this is an art piece'. What is interesting about that is that they are looking for that momentum—that entertainment can become art or that the building can become artistic in that way," explained Winy Maas. 

"What, then, is the difference between architecture and art? The project plays with that and I think that abstraction is part of it, but it has to surprise, seduce and it has to calm down," Maas added.

"The entrances, where the façades are lifted like a curtain to reveal mirrored ceilings and glass media floors, exude a sense of the excitement happening inside. Reflection and theatricality are therefore combined," concluded Maas. 

"With our design, after the nightly escapades, a zen-like silence follows during the day, providing an almost literally reflective situation for the after parties. Giorgio de Chirico would have liked to paint it, I think."

Project facts

Architect: MVRDV

Principal-in-charge: Winy Maas

Partner: Wenchian Shi

Design Team: María López Calleja with Daehee Suk, Xiaoting Chen, Kyosuk Lee, Guang Ruey Tan, Stavros Gargaretas, Mafalda Rangel, and Dong Min Lee

Copyright: MVRDV 2018 – (Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries)
 

Partners

Co-Architect: GANSAM Architects & Partners, South Korea

Façade Consultant: VS-A Group Ltd

Panelization Consultant: WITHWORKS

GFRC: Techwall

Lighting: L’Observatoire International

All images © Ossip van Duivenbode

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