강남 미디어 윈터페스타

"In the middle of the COEX mall in Seoul stands a 13-meter-tall bookcase. More than 70,000 books are shelved on it, and people sit beneath them and read. Everything here is free to read without having to buy it. Every large shopping mall in Seoul has a place like this. The point is not to be a place for shopping and nothing else, but to become a destination people set out for on purpose. The Hyundai Seoul in Yeouido built a forest indoors. Its garden is called Sounds Forest. Natural light streams through the glass ceiling, and off to one side, a 12-meter waterfall cascades from the third floor to the first. Starfield COEX Mall in Samseong-dong has a library. It is where that bookcase stands. Starfield Library sits among more than 100 cafes and restaurants, and people read there or simply take a break. The building was originally a convention center, with the ground floor and the first basement level connected to the mall. It also connects to the City Airport Terminal, from which a bus to Incheon Airport takes about an hour. Lotte World Tower in Jamsil is where you go to experience the sky. At 123 floors and 555 meters, it is the tallest building in Korea. The SEOUL SKY observatory sits at 500 meters. Its Sky Deck, where you can look down through a glass floor, holds the Guinness World Record for the highest glass-floored observatory. At 541 meters, there is the further option of stepping outside the building and walking the Sky Bridge. Inside Dongdaemun Design Plaza, there are exhibitions of all kinds on architecture, fashion, comics, and more, and Seoul Fashion Week is held here each spring and fall. After dark, the whole building lights up, becoming one of Seoul’s signature night views. It was designed by Zaha Hadid, the first woman architect to win the Pritzker Prize, and because it is asymmetrical, with almost no straight lines, many people say it looks like a UFO. Dongdaemun Fashion Town runs directly beside it. Some 30 shopping malls and more than 30,000 shops are gathered there, and some stay open until dawn. One street separates a cultural venue by a world-renowned architect from a busy wholesale market, and that pairing is a sight you will find nowhere else. A forest, a library, the sky, and a building that looks like a UFO. These are places that hand you an experience before they hand you anything to buy. That is exactly why a shopping mall counts as a destination in Seoul. "