Signiel Seoul

Between the 76th and 101st floors of Lotte World Tower, the 555-metre skyscraper on the shore of Seokchon Lake in south-east Seoul, sits Signiel Seoul. The hotel opened with the tower in April 2017 as the first house of Signiel, the top tier created by Lotte Hotels & Resorts, and it put its guests higher above the ground than any other hotel in Korea. On a clear evening the whole basin of the city is laid out below, ringed by mountains and cut through by the Han River.

History

Lotte Group's founder, Shin Kyuk-ho, pursued a landmark tower in Jamsil for decades. The group already held land here beside Lotte World, the theme park and shopping complex it opened on the edge of Seokchon Lake in 1989, and the tower was planned as the centre of a larger development of shops, offices, residences, an observatory and a hotel. Construction ran through the first half of the 2010s. The tower topped out in 2015 and opened to the public in April 2017, with the Seoul Sky observation decks above the hotel floors and a glass-floored deck on the 118th floor.

The Signiel name was introduced for this opening, as a step above the group's Lotte Hotel brand. Lotte used it again for Signiel Busan, which opened on Haeundae Beach in 2020.

Architecture and design

Kohn Pedersen Fox, the New York practice, designed the tower. Its tapering form, a slender cone with a seam running down each face, draws on the curves of Korean ceramics and the line of a calligrapher's brush, and pale glass gives it a softer outline than most supertall buildings. It has 123 storeys above ground. At completion it was the tallest building in Korea and one of the five tallest in the world.

Inside the hotel floors, glass wraps the rooms, and the interiors are kept restrained so that nothing competes with the windows. A luxury hotel in Seoul at this altitude is a different experience from one at street level. The noise of the city stays far below, and the light in the rooms follows the weather more than the hour.

Rooms and suites

There are 235 rooms and suites. Rooms facing north look across the Han River towards the old city and the granite ridges of Bukhansan. Those on the west take in Gangnam and the course of the river towards Yeouido, and in the evening the bridges light up one after another. At this height weather counts. Low cloud can close around the windows for hours and then break to show the city again, and on winter mornings the mountains to the north stand out sharply in the cold air.

Dining

Stay, the French restaurant on the 81st floor, was created with the chef Yannick Alléno. Bicena, a Korean restaurant run by the ceramics and food house Kwangjuyo, is on the same floor of the tower. The hotel's lounge and bar sit beside the windows high in the building, and they are the simplest way to see the view without booking a room.

Wellness

The spa, an indoor swimming pool and a fitness centre are all on the hotel floors, so a length of the pool comes with a view over south-east Seoul and the lake below.

Location

Jamsil Station, on subway Lines 2 and 8, connects underground to Lotte World Mall at the foot of the tower. Seokchon Lake, with its walking path and cherry trees, lies beside the complex, and Olympic Park, laid out for the 1988 Summer Games, is a short taxi ride east. Central Seoul is around half an hour by car outside rush hour. Incheon International Airport is well over an hour by road. Gimpo Airport is closer, and airport limousine buses serve Jamsil.