GLAD Hotel Yeouido

Yeouido, Seoul’s business district and beating heart of the global city’s finance and industry sector, isn’t exactly known for the modesty of its façades. Strolling around, you’d be forgiven for thinking these folks invented the high-rise. In every direction, gleaming glass-and-steel monuments erupt skyward, many of them plying East Asia’s characteristically cookie-cutter luxury hospitality model. Thankfully, it’s this very backdrop that helps GLAD Hotel Yeouido stand out, particularly its sui generis brick frontage. Thank design team Joh & Company for that — and for continuing the theme in the hotel’s interiors, where creatively stacked bricks lend a warm and welcome patterning to many a surface in the public spaces.

It’s a consistency that ends up working quite well, especially given the “street” (park benches, signage) vibe that rules the hallways. Once you enter the rooms, however, a more sedate grayscale theme asserts itself. Accommodations are roomy enough in a decidedly minimalist mode, with plenty of practical shelving and thoughtful Artemide lighting fixtures. The amenities cater to the harried business traveler: docking stations with Bluetooth speakers, espresso machines, LED flatscreens, and lightning-fast wi-fi suffice nicely, and the Pacific Coast Feather bedding and Aēsop bath amenities hint at a capacity for sustained relaxation. Secure a room on the upper floors for that glittering, high-wattage nighttime view of the cityscape. The facilities align with business expectations as well: Greets is essentially an upscale buffet, though it earns extra points for bronze and marble design elements and a distinctly loose-tie predilection for bottomless beverages. Mark T’s name picks up a vague thread of literary inspiration in a cozy, low-lit shrine to single-malt whiskeys.