In the centre of the new "Digital Media City" district in the South Korean capital Seoul lies the TRUTEC Building. The Barkow Leibinger firm of architects from Berlin faced the challenge of developing a site that had no historical context whatsoever and hence could not be "sourced" for information on what to build. Far from European architectural culture, in which analysis of historical circumstances and an architectural response to the location are firmly enshrined, the architects saw in the "Digital Media City" planned on the drawing board a place that, instead of generating architecture from within itself, simply receives it.
The TRUTEC Building offers European SMEs joint representation in South Korea. The office building with exhibition spaces for large machinery was developed by an international investor. Its central task relates to offering firms the unusual combination of office space and presentation areas for their products under one roof. Thus the TRUTEC Building's architecture metaphorically acts as an ambassador for successful technological exports to Asia.
The facade of the just on 55-metre-high cube consists almost exclusively of crystalline glass elements that, as well as reflecting the environs of the TRUTEC Building, also refract them like a kaleidoscope. This striking effect is achieved by means of storey-high discs measuring 4.20 by 2.70 metres that are divided up into polygonal segments and add up to 20 cm to the outside of the space. The three-dimensionally folded shell is thus turned into an abstract projection surface that seemingly breaks the adjoining building up into pixels.
The moulded design of the facade, involving systematic variations on a single facade module, sets the TRUTEC Building apart from its surroundings whilst also establishing a close visual correlation between it and the buildings around. The TRUTEC Building acts as an optical filter that alters how both it and the world it gives on to are beheld in a most remarkable manner. The structure comprises a basement car park, a ground, first and second floor with exhibition spaces of significantly above-standard height and a further seven storeys given over to flexibly assignable office floors. The service shaft is not positioned centrally but in the eastern corner of the building, which is most poorly lit due to adjoining structures. Here, the crystalline glass shell makes way for a facade of dark zinc shingle.
The upper storeys contain open-plan, flexibly usable office spaces looking out onto the street. As well as a columnless exhibition space, the ground floor also boasts a prestigious lobby plus gallery level. A triangular incision marks the visitors' entrance, which is located on the north-west route diagonally serving the adjacent park. A steel staircase that is likewise triangular in plan leads up from the entrance to the gallery and a café run there.
For their conceptually highly interesting building Barkow Leibinger Architects selected FSB 1005 door handle hardware in Aluminium. The slim wedge-shaped lever handle reconciles aesthetic and economic factors in the best possible way and in the process underscores the architects' ideological aspirations for the TRUTEC Building. This "unfussy yet utterly gripping" handle, as Barkow Leibinger put it, subordinates itself to the ambitious architecture moreover.
In den Obergeschossen sind großflächig zusammenhängende und flexibel nutzbare Büroflächen untergebracht, die sich zur Straße hin orientieren. Das Erdgeschoss verfügt neben einem stützenfreien Ausstellungsraum auch über eine repräsentative Lobby mit Galerieebene. Der durch einen dreieckigen Einschnitt markierte Besuchereingang befindet sich an der diagonal zum angrenzenden Park verweisenden Nordweststrecke. Von hier aus führt eine im Grundriss ebenfalls dreieckige Stahltreppe zur Galerie und dem dort gelegenen Café.
Barkow Leibinger Architekten wählten für ihr konzeptionell hoch interessantes Gebäude die FSB-Türdrückergarnitur 1005 in Aluminium. Der schlank proportionierte, keilförmige Drücker vereint auf beste Weise die Faktoren Ästhetik und Wirtschaftlichkeit und unterstreicht damit den ideologischen Anspruch der Architekten an das TRUTEC Building. Darüber hinaus ordnet er sich „schlicht und ergreifend“, wie Barkow Leibinger den Drücker beschreiben, der anspruchsvollen Architektur unter.
