Genesis Opens a Seven-Story Showroom With the GV90 Upstairs

Genesis opened its largest brand space yet on November 6, a seven-story building in Gwangju, South Korea, with the GV90 flagship SUV on show upstairs. The building has three basement levels, 9,881 square meters of floor area and 20 vehicles on display, and it is the brand’s sixth standalone space in Korea and the first in the Honam region of the country’s southwest.

The building is organized like a department store for one brand. The first two floors hold reception, test-drive and handover areas and a lounge serving the brand’s own tea blend, the third through fifth floors carry the full lineup plus a display for mixing colors, materials and finishes, and the sixth floor is given over to the GV90 and the GV90 Neolun. The seventh floor holds an owners’ lounge, a rooftop cafe and an outdoor terrace, and the lifestyle collections sold inside include golf apparel and accessories.

The design concept, which Genesis calls "Assembly of Light," draws on Gwangju’s identity as a city of light and water, with water features on the lower levels and transparent glass facades above, according to the brand’s release. The earlier five spaces are in Hanam, Gangnam, Suji, Anseong and Cheongju. An unnamed Genesis official told the Seoul Economic Daily that the space goes beyond displaying and selling cars and is meant to be a key hub for reaching customers in the region.

The programs are built around getting people into the cars. Test drives run on local routes near Gwangjuho Lake and Chuwolsan Mountain, including comparative drives and unaccompanied drives, and an on-demand mobile test-drive program using the GV80 Hybrid starts in nearby Suncheon in the fourth quarter. Third-floor community classes include a tea ceremony class, a lighting object class and a clay design class for children, with workshops tied to upcoming models, including GV90-inspired craft sessions, planned next. Owners get ceremonial unveilings, handovers and courtesy pick-up. The space is open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., closed on the first Monday of each month, New Year’s Day and the day of and the day after Lunar New Year and Chuseok.

Nothing about the building is coming to the United States, but two of the cars inside it are. The GV90 on the sixth floor is the flagship Genesis is preparing for American buyers, with swivel front seats and a lounge-style rear cabin, and the GV80 Hybrid used for the mobile test drives runs the new hybrid system Genesis detailed in October. Genesis Gwangju is in effect the first place the public can sit in a GV90 and book a drive in the hybrid GV80 on the same visit.

The HyundaiHQ Take

A showroom with a rooftop cafe and a clay class for kids sounds like marketing excess until you remember what Genesis is trying to do, which is to sell a $100,000-class SUV to people who have never considered a Korean luxury brand. In Korea that is being done with buildings. In the US it will have to be done inside Hyundai dealerships that have not always treated Genesis as a separate brand, and that gap is the real story here. The GV90 is a car that needs an hour in a quiet room, and Genesis Gwangju is what Genesis thinks that room should look like.