Seoinn Design Group has designed a place of worship with a stone tower featuring a cross hanging over an observatory as a contemporary spire for the Saemoonan Church in South Korea.
Saemoonan Church, which is oldest established protestant church in the country, is known as South Korea's "mother church". Seoinn Design Group designed the new building to visually reflect its religious significance.

"It is called the mother church with pride, as it was the first Korean protestant church," explained Dongkyu Choi, principal architect for the project.
"This is why I made the front plaza's hollow form as a shape of mother opening her arms," he told Dezeen.

Built in the Jongno-gu district of Seoul, the building is the sixth home for the Saemoonan Church, which was established in 1887. The thirteen-storey church stands behind a circular-shaped public plaza and is designed to have a distinctive form.

The curved stone facade extends forward on either side of the plaza with the building rising in two towers on either side of a central entrance.
While one tower contains many of the church's offices and rooms, the other, slimmer tower acts as a modern version of a spire. It contains a small chapel and is topped with an observatory containing a suspended cross.

Seoinn Design Group designed the church to have a modern form, rejecting a tradition gothic appearance, to represent the church's current position.

"The form felt like a transformation of got...