24 Sep 2018
MVRDV completes work on Seoul's Imprint theme park
BY Andrew Manns
Rotterdam-based architectural firm MVRDV has completed construction on the Imprint, a two-building, 9,800-square-metre indoor theme park and nightclub located less than a kilometre from Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea.
Visually, the Imprint is a windowless structure comprising 3,869 glass-fibre reinforced concrete panels. According to Winy Mass, MVDRV’s co-founder, these features were introduced in order to create a façade that would imitate other buildings in the area.
“By placing, as it were, surrounding buildings into the façades of our buildings and in the central plaza,” said Mass, “we connect The Imprint with the neighbours.”
Further elements that accentuate the Imprint’s distorted appearance are raised entrances. Highlighted by splashes of golden paint, they create an optical illusion by simulating drapery.
"This makes it as if the entrance is also illuminated at night by a ray of sunlight," Mass added.
The architect likened the Imprint's surrealistic design to those of Giorgio de Chirico.
“Reflection and theatricality are therefore combined,” Mass explained. “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."
The Imprint is the most recent addition to Paradise City, an entertainment centre of hotels and attractions which MVRDV took on as a project in 2016. It has worked in collaboration with the Korean Studio GANSAM Architects and Partners on the development.
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