BIG converts 1930s financial institution to create main new retailer for Galeries Lafayette in Paris

Bjarke Ingels’ agency has created a “retail laboratory” for French division retailer Galeries Lafayette inside an art-deco financial institution on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

BIG sought to rejoice the historical past of the 1930s constructing, matching its authentic art-deco particulars with opulent shows.

However the house is designed to operate as greater than only a retailer – Galeries Lafayette sees it as hybrid retail mannequin, which shall be used for internet hosting style reveals, model occasions and different actions.

“The uncooked house has an virtually city scale and character that makes it able to accommodating even the wildest interventions, which makes me excited to think about what I would look forward to finding right here subsequent time I come again,” mentioned Bjarke Ingels.

“And it reveals me that Galleries Lafayette just isn’t solely opening a brand new division retailer on Champs-Élysées, somewhat, they’ve opened up a brand new city room for the Parisians,” he defined.

The transfer shall be a primary for the model, which began when Théophile Bader and Alphonse Kahn began promoting style gadgets from their haberdashery retailer on Rue La Fayette in 1895. It’s now the town’s most essential luxurious division retailer, with branches throughout France and around the globe.

“Working with a household and an organization that may look again 100 years provides you, not solely the likelihood, however truly the duty to aim to look as far forward as you’ll be able to look again,” defined Ingels.

“With the appearance and omnipresence of on-line retail, the city division retailer’s function and relevance should be renewed because the city agora,” he continued.

“We people are social beings and greater than ever do we want a discussion board for collective intimacy, the place we will not simply get what we would like by clicking on it, however the place we will interact with others in city environments which can be visually and bodily stimulating to all of the senses.”

The renovation concerned stripping out the black-painted drywall that obscured the vast majority of the constructing’s interiors, making house for a brand new point of interest – a light-filled central atrium anchored by a sequence of chunky marble columns.

The wealthy materials palette is sustained with the ring-shaped show plinths that wrap across the columns, crafted from gold-hued sheets of perforated metallic.

Dressing rooms are upholstered in thick pink material, whereas “magic carpets” that dip up and down from the ground assist showcase totally different footwear.

Merchandise in different rooms are introduced inside tall stacks of hole bins and model stands are clad in reflective mirror.

“To create an invite to enter, ascend and discover, we’ve got designed a handful of parts that discover themselves on the intersection of structure and furnishings,” added Ingels.

Amanda Levete chosen to rework Paris’ Galeries Lafayette division retailer

“Quite than messing with the outdated bones of the constructing or delineating operate with partitions, the programme has been supplied with a household of pavilions that will change and rework over time.”

The grand flight of stairs within the atrium – which might function staggered seating for in-store occasions – leads as much as an extra three flooring the place jewelry, particular version trainers and items from rising style designers are showcased.

A restaurant named Oursin and a Parisian meals court docket affords consumers a spot to relaxation and recharge. They will additionally seize a espresso at Citron – a lemon tree-filled cafe created by clothier Simon Porte Jacquemus.

Guests can then exit the shop through an illuminated walkway.

Galeries Lafayette is certainly one of a number of initiatives that BIG has accomplished in 2019.

The follow additionally completed work on a vortex-shaped schooling centre that sits beside a fjord within the Faroe Islands and an extension to the College of Massachusetts which options “domino impact” copper partitions.

The agency first introduced it was engaged on the Galeries Lafayette undertaking in 2016. The retail group can be working with different big-name architects on different initiatives, together with OMA and Amanda Levete Architects.

“By opening on the Champs-Élysées, our group just isn’t solely writing a brand new chapter in its entrepreneurial and household historical past, it is usually fulfilling its founder’s dream,” mentioned Philippe Houze, govt chairman of the Galeries Lafayette Group.

“A dream expressed almost 100 years in the past on the nook of the Champs and Rue La Boetie, the place in 1927 Theophile Bader deliberate to construct a venue providing one thing halfway between retail, providers and leisure,” he continued.

“Nearly 90 years later, we’re delighted to pursue his grand design with a retailer idea that’s each historic and disruptive.”