Cathedral of commerce: this new department store is a monumental shop window with wider urban ambitions.Since 1901, department store chain Peek & Cloppenburg has been a fixture in the lives of German shoppers, beginning life as a gentleman's outfitter in Berlin and thence expanding into ladies' wear and city centres across Germany. Fortunes foundered following the Second World War, when not a single P & C store survived unscathed, but the firm doggedly rebuilt and reestablished itself. Now it has over 65 stores in Germany and nurtures wider pan European ambitions, with outlets in Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, as well as the emerging eastern markets of Poland, Slovakia and Russia. Acutely aware of the power of image to help shift goods, Peek & Cloppenburg's forays into imaginative architectural patronage have included buildings by Kleihues, Meier, Gottfried Bohm and most recently, Renzo Piano, whose new store in Cologne was finally completed last year. Wedged between a busy shopping district and a raucous arterial road, the site, near the city's famous cathedral, was not auspiciously favoured. Neighbours consisted largely of glum concrete refugees from the 1970s, their civic monotony briefly enlivened by the presence of St Antoniterkirche, a late Gothic church. Such circumstances called for some kind of bold yet generous gesture that could rise above its surroundings. Piano exceeds expectations with a swelling glazed protuberance protuberance /pro·tu·ber·ance/ (-too´ber-ans) a projecting part, or prominence. mental protuberance , five storeys high, that slinks slink calves, slinks unborn calves retrieved at the abattoir. Their meat, slink veal, is not authorized for consumption in most countries. Their skins are valuable because they are so fine and clean. around a more conventional orthogonal block, enfolding en·fold tr.v. en·fold·ed, en·fold·ing, en·folds 1. To cover with or as if with folds; envelop. 2. To hold within limits; enclose. 3. To embrace. it in a sinuous sinuous /sin·u·ous/ (sin´u-us) bending in and out; winding. sinuous bending in and out; winding. , shimmering embrace. Resembling a monumental orangery or·ange·ry n. pl. or·ange·ries A sheltered place, especially a greenhouse, used for the cultivation of orange trees in cool climates. , albeit with its proportions fashionably warped and morphed, the 130m long vitreous vitreous /vit·re·ous/ (vit´re-us) 1. glasslike or hyaline. 2. vitreous body. primary persistent hyperplastic vitreous volume surges fluidly along Schildergasse, dipping in deference to St Antoniterkirche, before gathering and climaxing in an almost obscenely bulbous bulbous /bul·bous/ (bul´bus) 1. bulbar. 2. shaped like, bearing, or arising from a bulb. bulbous having the form or nature of a bulb; bearing or arising from a bulb. outcrop that has quickly become a new Cologne landmark. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In some ways, it is simply a glorified, superscale shop window, but it also has wider urban ambitions. The sleek, serpentine flank defines the edge of a new pedestrianised public square in front of the church and provides a modicum of dignity to the entrance to a motorway underpass that cuts underneath the site. Moreover, as a feat of construction, it embodies Piano's characteristic inventiveness, riffing on technologies of timber and glass that first found more modest expression with the IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) Travelling Pavilion (AR November 1984). Here, towering arched glulam ribs made from lamella lamella /la·mel·la/ (lah-mel´ah) pl. lamel´lae [L.] 1. a thin leaf or plate, as of bone. 2. a medicated disk or wafer to be inserted under the eyelid. of Siberian larch lock into a gently curved steel spinal ridge girder girder In building construction, a large main supporting beam, commonly of steel or reinforced concrete, that carries a heavy transverse (crosswise) load. In a floor system, beams and joists transfer their loads to the girders, which in turn frame into the columns. . The timber ribs are tied back to the building's concrete frame by a secondary steel structure and lateral bracing is provided by a cat's cradle of tensile wires. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The undulating form dictated that nearly all of the facade's 7000 glazing panels are unique components, yet such apparently unrealisable complexity was made possible by the now humdrum miracle of CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) See numerical control. CNC - Collaborative Networked Communication controlled glass cutting. Though the aim was to wrap the building in a transparent veil and funnel daylight into the shopping floors, a system of integral blinds provides shading when required. Heat rises through the stack effect and is dissipated by openable louvres. Most of the great sweep of glazing faces north-east, so solar gain is not considered to be a major issue. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Not unexpectedly, Peek & Cloppenburg professes to be delighted with its latest flagship, seeing such a conspicuous new civic presence as vindicating its policy of bold architectural patronage, yet it was not an entirely straightforward ride, with a standoff between client and contractor conspiring to delay the project by around two years. Finally, however, Cologne's glass whale has beached and the city can boast a new cathedral, this time dedicated to the demanding deities of commerce. C. S. 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