Just as in any major city around the globe, coffee culture has laid down roots in Seoul, and actually in a big way, resulting in a multitude of specialised coffee parlours. It’s an ongoing trend which has yet to see the end, and each month new cafés pop up offering the most alluring concoctions. One of the latest exceptional places to arrive in the highly competitive coffee scene of South Korean capital ticks all of our boxes and is called PONT. Interestingly, it’s situated Hangangno, an area town not particularly known as fashionable or even edgy, but then again, its presence could very well be the very first sign of gentrification. The café and roastery sits a stone’s throw away from a former railway depot and occupies a simple wooden structure from the 1940s which previously served as a railway office.
Positioned in between two paths on either side, and in fact serving as a corridor, inspired the owner the establishment’s current French name, and meaning ‘bridge’ in English, poetically imagining that people could connect over a cup of coffee. Elongated and fairly narrow, the premises measure 105 sqm. (1,130 sq.ft.) and feature an interior design by Studio Stof, a design and architecture practice based in Seoul. The architect captured PONT‘s physical location, identity and concept by applying a select range of materials which would conjure up images of roads in the neighbourhood and induce movement within the space. At the same time, a variety of materials of columns and ceilings inside the space, such as bricks, metal, and wood, have been retained and embedded in the design. Striking new interventions include an elongated bridge-like wooden bar table and matching cabinets and shelving, and terracotta tile flooring. The menu of PONT lists a wide range of coffee concoctions, from espresso and Americano, to imported drip coffees, in addition to juices and teas.
PONT
19-16 Hangang-daero 15-gil (Hangangno)
04379 Seoul
Daily 11-9
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
