Surreally so Real
“Surreally Real” reveals the limitations of commercial architecture in the Hongdae district while proposing new possibilities. Most commercial buildings in the area prioritize maximum visual and physical exposure in order to secure higher rents. As a result, interiors and streets are often separated only by thin walls or show-windows, which paradoxically reinforces the dichotomy between inside and outside. This building distances itself from such an urban design logic. Instead, it introduces a buffer zone between interior and exterior, allowing the city itself to be drawn into the building. This approach echoes traditional architectural methods, where space is not reduced to market logic but actively negotiates a relationship with the urban environment.
The most striking gesture is the placement of the staircase at the front of the building. Here, the stairs and balconies become the façade itself, directly confronting the street and creating an architectural device for dialogue with the city. While deceptively simple, this decision is far from easy. It allowed the building to break away from the flatness of typical office prototypes and produce a volumetric façade. Thanks to the exposed stairs and balconies, the design avoids the suffocating image of blocked windows and instead achieves a new spatial depth within strict constraints.
In terms of meaning, the building resists the temptation to manufacture novelty. Its façade borrows from the familiar language of the Korean office building, maintaining an ordinary appearance. Yet within this familiar frame, it introduces an unfamiliar system of circulation and layering. As a result, the building achieves a distinct presence in the city without resorting to superficial strategies of looking “special.”
The site conditions required the building to occupy the entire plot, which risked producing a flat, two-dimensional impression. Rather than accept this limitation, the design confronted it head-on by incorporating volumetric devices. In this way, the very constraints that seemed to deny spatial depth became the source of its architectural originality.
Ultimately, the building demonstrates that the “Surrealism” in architecture does not emerge from a single stroke of genius, but from persistent engagement with reality. Novelty arises not from spectacle, but from what is fundamental—and from the stubborn insistence on carrying it through. By accepting and pushing against constraints, the project produces moments that appear to exceed reality itself. It stands as evidence that what seems unreal in architecture is often born from the most uncompromisingly real conditions.
