The Petroleum Development Center was the headquarters of Korea National Oil Corporation and a project that proceeded through a design competition in late 1991. Among the programs proposed by the former Korea Petroleum Development Corporation, it included the Petroleum Hall to strengthen international competitiveness in petroleum development and stockpiling operations, the Petroleum Information Center to research, analyze, and manage international oil market reserves and petroleum development information, and conference facilities and research labs for domestic and international petroleum development cooperation. It was designed to faithfully serve as Korea’s first state-of-the-art petroleum development information and technology center in a small-to-medium city region. The building was sold to a real estate developer in 2014 and demolished, and the headquarters was relocated to Ulsan.

The site, located in Pyeongchon New Town, was at the time an empty field where not even road construction had been completed, aside from a few apartment frames. Therefore, rather than seeking an urban context, work began by predicting future changes in the surrounding area. In particular, to find a distinctive architectural vocabulary for the Petroleum Development Center, a symbolic design approach was taken by focusing on a formal structure that emphasized the image of an “offshore oil drilling rig.” The base was composed of four independent cylindrical towers, upon which a high-tech glass cube completed by a restrained double grid was placed, so that through simple massing articulation and contrast, interior functions and exterior form achieved consistency.