Busan Cinema Center

About this place

Completed in 2011 as the permanent home of the Busan International Film Festival, Coop Himmelb(l)au's Busan Cinema Center is organised around a public space rather than a building. Two roofs — the Big Roof and the Small Roof — float above an outdoor cinema plaza in Centum City, sheltering festival crowds, screenings and everyday passers-by. The Big Roof is the defining gesture: a tilted, faceted slab that cantilevers dramatically out over the plaza, carried at one end by the Double Cone, a hyperbolic steel lattice that twists down to the ground and holds the lobby, bar and ramps. Its underside is clad in thousands of panels fitted with LEDs, turning the ceiling into a giant screen of light and colour after dark. A sweeping ramp spirals around the cone and climbs toward the roof, so moving through the building feels like a camera track. Beyond the cone, the Cinemountain stacks the main theatres, including the festival's largest auditorium, while a bridge links to the BIFF Hill outdoor stage. Visit at dusk, when the roof lights up and the scale of the cantilever is easiest to read from the plaza below.