Sulwhasoo Flagship Seoul by Neri&Hu: A Lantern Woven from Brass
A lantern as an architectural guide
The Sulwhasoo Flagship Store in Seoul is a five-storey journey through light, material and the idea of a lantern. Neri&Hu transformed an existing building designed by Korean architect IROJE into a home for the skincare brand, using an architectural language intended to connect contemporary retail with traditions of Asian craftsmanship. Rather than treating each floor as a separate sales area, the designers developed a continuous brass framework that moves through the building and gives its different spaces a shared identity.
The lantern is understood as an object that guides people through darkness and marks the beginning or end of a journey. In the store, that familiar symbolic role becomes a practical spatial system. A delicate grid of brass members defines passages, extends across voids and frames products, while visitors read its continuity as they move upward from the street. Its repeated pattern creates a sense of order without enclosing the whole interior behind solid walls.
An existing building with a new identity
The architects began with an existing five-storey structure completed in 2003. Its new use required spaces for retail, consultation, treatment and gathering. Neri&Hu chose not to erase the building's volume in pursuit of a single exhibition hall: they cut and connected interior areas so that the brass structure could be experienced from different heights and directions, turning circulation into an essential part of the brand experience.
The experience is deliberately sensory. Brass catches daylight and artificial light in different ways, giving the lattice a shimmering quality that changes as customers move. The regular grid is precise, but its apparent depth makes the space feel more expansive than a conventional store fitted with separate shelving units. The framework also brings visual order to the many products and intimate service areas that share the building.
The lattice and its reflections
Mirrored volumes are inserted among the lattice members. Their reflections multiply the brass lines and make the structure seem to continue beyond its physical edges. Instead of concealing practical enclosures behind conventional walls, the designers turn them into elements that intensify the atmosphere of the interior. Some perspectives become deliberately ambiguous, giving visitors reasons to explore rather than follow only a direct route.
The framework is also an apparatus for lighting and display. Custom fixtures hang within its members, illuminating the products and transforming the grid from a background into an active element of the retail experience. The relationship between architecture, light and merchandise is integrated, so the products occupy small moments within a larger continuous spatial composition.
A landscape of wood and stone
Underfoot, broad timber planks establish warmth and a sense of weight. At selected places the wooden floor rises into counters that support stone display blocks, presenting individual products almost like objects in a gallery. The contrast between the open brass framework, solid timber surfaces and stone creates material variety without introducing a disconnected decorative theme.
The bespoke furniture and display surfaces support an experience of luxury rooted in material quality and careful detailing. Their forms are deliberately restrained, allowing the intricate lattice and its light effects to remain prominent. The result is a retail environment that offers places to stop, handle products, rest and look across different floors of the store.
A journey from intimacy to openness
At basement level, the spa is more sheltered and intimate, with dark brick, grey stone and wood establishing a quieter atmosphere. Moving through the higher levels, the spatial character becomes lighter and more open. This progression gives architectural expression to the concept of moving from protection towards light, and provides a coherent narrative for spaces that have very different practical functions.
The route culminates at the roof terrace, where the brass structure becomes a more open canopy that frames views across Seoul. From enclosed treatment rooms to the skyline, the journey makes the building itself part of the visitor's memory. The project offers a model of retail design in which identity, lighting, display and architecture grow from one idea rather than being applied in separate layers.
Project details and photography
Project: The Lantern | Sulwhasoo Flagship Store, 650 Sinsadong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Interior and retail design: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office; existing building architect: IROJE. Gross area: 1,949 m². Completed: March 2016. Photography: Pedro Pegenaute and Kyungsub Shin. Each photograph is credited in its caption.
Comments