Seoul firm 1990uao achieved a number of completely unique rooms in Seoul’s Snow Hotel through a mix of wallpaper, ceramic tile and brick. Looking at the photographs, we can hardly believe that these rooms are all from the same project.
The architects told ArchDaily that detailing in such projects typically comes later in the process, but the firm went against convention by planning key interior designs from the start.
And, boy, did they knock it out of the park. In the smattering of examples we’re showing here you can see checkered ceramic tiles stretching down a jet-black hallway, a spa in pristine white, a film room which evokes the look of television static and (my personal favorite) a brick room which makes me want to grab a candelabra, dress in black and haunt the place for the next several decades.
Their theory behind material used in the project is worth a closer look:
“Material lays in-between matter and the result of the work using that material. In other word, matter turns into material and material turned into building. However, there is another factor that material must have in order for it to be an architecture not merely building. That factor is called attribute. Attribute is like a prerequisite for the matter to be that matter, and a special process is required in order to put attribute into material. It’s the respect (or attitude towards) for material. In this project, fidelity and betrayal toward that respect coexist. Real is mixed with fake, thing-in-itself and phenomenon coexist, and characteristic and accident intersect each other.
“Like the way the image on a mirror exist yet differ from its origin, stone is thin and sharp yet heavy, and tree is soft and warm while it is still hard. Brick is thickly stacked in one place, yet sliced and cladded in another place. Although, it is hard to distinguish tile and wallpaper using their applied location and purpose, they are in fact the same as they both serve the same purpose of cladding. Every materials stay in the place where they belong to, but still appears in unexpected places with the different image. In this project, material is made from matter, but they share half the appearance and personality of matter.”
Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor at CFile.
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The Snow Hotel in Seoul, South Korea by 1990uao. Photographs by Sun Namgoong.
What a great melding of form, line, texture, pattern, color, materials and function!