ST Songeun Building (Grand Prize Winner of the 11th Exhibition)

Herzog & de Meuron, a Swiss architectural duo, won the 2001 Pritzker Prize, known as the Nobel Prize in architecture, and designed the Tate Modern in London and the Beijing Olympic Stadium. The first project they carried out in Korea was the Song Eun Cultural Foundation's ST Song Eun Building located in Cheongdam-dong. The Song Eun Cultural Foundation was established in 1989 with the purpose of discovering and supporting young and promising artists. Originally, there was a much smaller Songeun Art Space building on this site, and construction on the building began in 2018 and was completed in 2021. When viewed from the front, it is an honest square no different from other buildings on Dosan-daero, but when viewed from the side, the pointy triangle is impressive. When you get closer, you can see the unique texture of the surface. The texture of pine was expressed using wooden formwork on the concrete exterior wall. It is said to have been inspired by ‘Songeun (松隱)’, which means ‘hidden pine tree’. In a building with 11 floors above ground and 5 floors underground, the exhibition space extends from the 2nd basement floor through the first floor lobby to the 2nd and 3rd floors above ground. Thanks to the spiral staircase that connects the exhibition hall on the second basement floor to the second floor above ground, a cool and relaxed space was created in the middle. All exhibitions are free to introduce contemporary art to a wider audience.