Gallery: The Cloud: MVRDV’s Twin...
Natural daylighting and cross ventilation play an important role in all of the apartments.
Located at the entrance of the Yongsan Dreamhub, designed by Daniel Liebskind, the Cloud will be a unique high rise in the new business district. The residential complex is formed out of two skyscrapers – one 260 meters tall tower and the other – 300 meters tall. Starting at the 27th floor is a 10-story tall pixelated cluster that serves as the “cloud”. This area provides space for an atrium, a wellness centre, a conference centre, a fitness studio, various pools, restaurants and cafes.
On top of the cluster is series of public and private outside spaces, patios, decks, gardens and pools. Special express elevators allow fast and direct access to the cloud. Most towers feature a plinth located on the bottom floor, where most of the residential amenities are housed, but this tower moves those more private amenities to the middle. This frees up the ground floor for public space and gardens designed by Martha Schwartz. The Cloud offers luxury apartments ranging in size from 80m2 to 260m2 with penthouses occupying the floors above the cluster and townhouses on the floors below. Natural daylighting and cross ventilation play an important role in all of the apartments. Construction of the towers is expected to be completed by 2015.
Regarding the Cloud’s resemblance to the Twin Towers, MVRDV has issued a public apology and has expressed that they in no way meant for the design to look like the former WTC.
13 Responses to “The Cloud: MVRDV’s Twin Towers Look Eerily Similar to The World Trade Center”
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I find this design horribly disturbing. They should fire the POS that came up with this idea and revoke his right to practice as an architect.
Has nobody at MVRDV realized that this kind of looks like the WTC mid-explosion? What are they thinking?
is it just me… ?
those towers remind me of someplace else.
i don’t like them.
Deeply disturbing design to my eyes. Squint just a bit and it looks very much like the smoldering twin towers after the planes’ impact.
after to lawyers, architects are the scourge of the city
The pixelated cloud is the actually the cross section of the architects brain
I think its fantastic. Yes, it undeniably ‘looks like something else’, but cmon have you seen modern architecture lately? With all the odd shapes and structure over the last half-decade you could likely find your mom’s face or an angry cat hovering over some city somewhere. The basic thought here is great; clearly they are thinking of the towers being in the clouds, being utopian, finding a better way to brighten urban lives. It probably couldn’t work load wise all the way at the top; and too far down would defeat the purpose.
There should be a poll option for “Yes they look like the Twin Towers, but why does it matter when most skyscrapers look like the Twin Towers?” The concept picture has several other buildings in the background that look like slight modifications of the basic rectangular prism made of glass. The architects here just added some fluff in the middle.
Anybody who’s getting their panties in a twist over these towers needs to remember 2 things: First, the architect almost definitely wasn’t thinking of the WTC and any perceived similarities are purely a figment of your imagination. Second, this is a Dutch architecture firm producing a design for a South Korean project, so how does this have ANYTHING to do with Americans?
so what is the problem having a high rise imitate the 9/11? its need to be documented like this so that history remains for the future
It’s just a building, why should it matter if it might resemble 9/11, if anything it’s good for making sure no one ever forgets.
Innovative, beautiful. No apology necessary.
I think that this building is beautiful. Yes your mind may say it looks like the twins but its not. I would like to see this built and even look to getting a place in there.
I feel for the people of the tower tragedy but theres no reason to stop this beautiful piece of art from happening.