Floating love hotel, 2016

digital work, 3d rendering, 3d printing scale model


South Korea’s overinflated house prices and long Confucianism history have removed speaking about sex from the everyday life of parents and children who are related, even though many young people can’t be independent from their parents until they have gotten marriage. Consequently, many ‘love hotels’ or motels have shot up in the backstreets of the country’s cities. Young couples are their main visitors. The visitors of these love hotels mostly visit them for the purpose of sex. They usually rent a room for only three hours. Interestingly, although these love hotels have become part of sexual culture, many visitors are still reluctant to show their identities. Therefore, some love hotels provide a man-less service, hiding car numbers, for instance.

It seems that sexual culture in South Korea is getting more and more taboo. After experiencing the Dutch’s healthy, open sexual culture, I considered that bringing hidden culture out into the open and into the public space could be a good way to begin a small movement towards breaking away from taboo. The Floating Love Hotel could be a popular tourism product.