Closer To People

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Snøhetta presented the project of the city hall of the South Korean city of Cheongju. The project won the 2020 competition, at the final stage of which the "star" Norwegians competed with Daniel Libeskind and Dominique Perrault. Snøhetta's local partner was Tomoon Architects & Engineers.

The new town hall should unite the work of all municipal departments currently scattered across different buildings. Cheongju is the fourteenth largest city in South Korea with a population of 800,000, located 128 km from the capital Seoul. The city's need for a new administrative center became especially urgent after its merger with the surrounding area, Cheongwon County; the city and region, organizationally separated in 1946, merged into an integrated and autonomous administrative unit in 2014. According to the organizers of the competition, the new town hall should become a symbol of the integration that took place, which became the first precedent of its kind in the modern history of Korea. The TK also states that the building should be easily accessible to citizens, organically fit into the context of the historical center and serve as a stimulus for its subsequent development.

For the new town hall, an area of slightly less than 3 hectares has been set aside - an elongated rectangular area where two city blocks are now located, one of them is filled with administrative buildings, the other is occupied by a city hospital. All existing buildings, both hospital and administrative, are planned to be demolished, retaining the appearance of only one building, built in 1965, including, it is emphasized, a glass-like "pipe" on its roof.

Snøhetta fulfilled the listed requirements. The building from 1965 is preserved by the architects and used as an "entrance portal". It is located practically in the center of the rectangular area of the future city hall; around it, according to the project of the Norwegians, a spacious city square is formed, surrounded by a frame of a new volume. The volume gradually decreases and opens up in the southern part, where the city square is planned (the building did not occupy the entire rectangle).

Новая ратуша Чхонджу © Snøhetta and Plomp

Citizens will have access to both the square and the first two tiers of the new building, which will house cafes, restaurants, shops, an exhibition hall, a post office, a library and a children's center. The upper floors, designed as a solid space that allows employees of different departments to easily move and interact with each other, will be completely given to the employees of the mayor's office. However, the interior projects have not yet been fully published, and it is impossible to get acquainted with them in detail.

The volume of variable number of storeys due to its considerable length "spreads" along the ground; its height is on average 19 m, but in the northern part the building rises in an arc-like manner towards the towers in the adjacent section - the plastic of the rise resembles the Montreal Pavilion from Expo-1967 Mikhail Posokhin. The height at the highest point reaches 43 m, and in the south-western corner it drops to zero - as if the rectangle of the city hall is “sinking into the ground”. The single-storey parking under the main part of the building deepens to the two-storey one.

The outer edges of the roofs are smoothly raised, their surface, like the surface of the facades, is covered with shallow grooves of different widths - the color, shape, as well as the curvature of the roof, the authors interpret contextually, as reminiscent of the traditions of Korean architecture with its curved roofs.

On facades and roofs, transparent and opaque panels alternate: some are responsible for protection from direct sunlight, others for the penetration of natural light. Some of the blind panels are planned to be made movable for natural ventilation of the building, and the transparent panels will be made of laminated glass laminated with copper mesh, which will provide views of the surroundings, however, protecting the interior from outside views. The authors propose to integrate BIPV solar panels and a rainwater collection system into the roof.

The jury, including representatives from MAD and Henning Larsen, described the project as a brilliant piece of work, a building that stands firm on its feet and perfectly suited to the city's autonomous status. The image of the building was considered by the jury to be vivid, corresponding to its role as a new urban accent, while noting that the new mayor's office forms a balanced and spacious public space. The Cheongju Town Hall, based on the winning Snøhetta project, is slated to be completed by 2025.