Objets Extraordinaires : The Celadon Façade - Van Cleef & Arpels in Seoul

The façade of the building perfectly illustrates Jouin Manku’s quest for the extraordinary. It is a singular, extremely complex structure, designed to leave a lasting impression and engrave the spirit of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Korean universe in the memory of every visitor. This unique architectural envelope blends ancestral Korean craftsmanship with cutting-edge contemporary engineering, powerfully embodying the desire to merge tradition and innovation.

The building is wrapped in a celadon-glazed ceramic lattice – a characteristic tradition of one of Korea’s most enduring skills, developed and mastered locally for more than two millennia. The ceramic pieces are supported by specially designed aluminum elements, while the lattice is illuminated by hidden light points concealed within steel light caps.
Celadon ceramics, with their characteristic jade-like green glaze, occupy a central place in the history of Korean art. Popularized during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392 AD) through exchanges with China’s Song dynasty, Korean artisans gradually perfected this technique to develop a style that is now widely regarded as surpassing its Chinese origins in delicacy and depth.
To honor this heritage, we placed celadon at the very heart of the building’s identity. Throughout the day, the façade projects shifting shadows and reflections into the interior spaces, and at night it diffuses a delicate glow over the city.

The ceramic pieces were crafted in a traditional workshop that usually produces tableware. The “witch-colored” celadon glaze, developed and produced specifically for the façade, was created in one of Korea’s last artisanal celadon glazing studios. The ceramic tiles were shaped in a local traditional workshop specialized in tableware. The celadon glaze was specially formulated by one of the last Korean experts in celadon coloring. Each tile was carefully crafted to follow the building’s curvature, a process that required numerous prototypes and extreme precision.
The façade is composed of 207 intersecting elements and animated by 3,900 unique celadon ceramic pieces from Yeoju, 3,900 aluminum parts, and 120 light sources. The pattern is diamond-shaped, created using celadon, the traditional Korean ceramic, combined with cast aluminum. 
Finally, aluminum could only be used thanks to a specific local production condition: the historical know-how of metallurgy, maintained by Korea’s advanced industries. South Korea is a world leader in aluminum innovation, and the pieces used in this façade are the result of state-of-the-art engineering developed by the Korean industry. Combined with celadon, aluminum forms an airy structure that filters light inside while offering a sense of refuge and intimacy.