Boutique Monaco, Residential skyscraper in Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Boutique Monaco is a residential high-rise in Seoul with retail spaces occupying the lower levels and apartments filling the upper floors. The building combines shopping and living functions in a single structure that serves both commercial and residential needs.
Construction began in 2005 and the tower was completed in August 2008, designed by Minsuk Cho under the working title "Missing Matrix". It won the 2008 Silver Emporis Skyscraper Award, placing ahead of the 101-storey Shanghai World Financial Center, and received the grand prize in the private sector at the 2009 Korean Architecture Culture Awards.
The tower's working title, "Missing Matrix", became the subject of the 2012 German documentary Up to the Sky, filmed by Sabine Pollmeier and Joachim Haupt for Parnass Film, ZDF and arte. It also appears in episode 14 of the Korean drama My Love from the Star.
The tower stands in Seocho 4-dong, Seocho-gu, with the lower five floors given over to retail and commercial space and the officetel units above. Visitors reach the building by road and public transport in the Seocho district; the sky gardens are private to residents and seen from their balconies.
The 15 recesses are cut into the exterior, not the interior: they were left empty to keep the building within the site's floor area ratio, which a plain vertical block would have exceeded by 10 percent. Each void holds a sky garden overlooked from residents' balconies, an idea Minsuk Cho used to add human qualities to the tower.
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