Korea’s 1,400-foot-tall City Tower to be world’s first invisible skyscraper

Updated Sep 17, 2013

South Korea The Tower InfinityAs part of a a design competition in Korea, GDS Architects was recently awarded a permit to build the world’s very first invisible skyscraper.

The 1,476-foot-tall structure—dubbed The Tower Infinity, but officially known as City Tower—will be located in Cheongna, near the Incheon Airport outside of Seoul, South Korea, according to a report from CNET. The tower’s observation deck will be the third highest in the world, according the to folks from GDS.

So how does a tower make itself invisible? It’s complicated, but the short answer is “a lot of projectors.”

The building’s facade is made of LEDs and projectors. While 18 weatherproof cameras take photos of what’s behind the building, the photos are stitched into a panorama and projected back onto the reflective surface of the building.

And while it might sound like a terrible idea to place a 1,400-foot-tall building you can’t see near an airport, apparently the invisibility cloak effect only occurs during certain times of day at certain angles.

But there’s also a usefulness to the building’s facade beyond the cool effect.

“This same technology also allows the tower to become a 450-meter-tall billboard screen and urban focal point for all arriving at Incheon,” according to GDS.

No completion date has been set.