Light fantastic.SHOP, CONDUIT STREET, LONDON A clothes shop in London's West End provides an airy, luminous space and adds to the glamour of the street. Stanton Williams' new shop for Issey Miyake
Many of the greatest, most famous or most infamous men in history have patronised the many tailors that occupy this street; men such as Winston , is a fluid and luminous space capable of adapting to Miyake's changing vision. The clarity and restraint of the design, informed by supple supple Physical exam adjective Referring to free movement of a body part architectural intelligence, is characteristic of this practice responsible for, among other things, the quiet improvement of the National Theatre's public spaces. The original premises on ground floor and basement were stripped down to the shell and structural columns. Wooden framed windows and doors were replaced by a glazed entrance, which cuts across the corner, and big shop windows, 3.5m high, giving onto Conduit Street and Savile Row and flooding the interior with daylight. Dissolution of the barrier between inside and out is reinforced by deep stone cills continuing the stone face of the building. Running along the east side of the shop is what the architects call an 'inhabited wall' which acts as a backdrop to an otherwise open and lofty volume. It conceals structural columns and services, and accommodates an elegant sales desk, with illuminated glass counter, and shelving shelv·ing n. 1. Shelves considered as a group. 2. Material for shelves. 3. An incline; a slope. shelving Noun 1. material for shelves 2. , the openings seeming to have been carved out of the solid. Throughout, detailing -- like the glass and steel staircase to the basement, hanging rails and display system -- is refined and spare, adding to the pleasure of the place. Finishes intensify luminosity luminosity, in astronomy, the rate at which energy of all types is radiated by an object in all directions. A star's luminosity depends on its size and its temperature, varying as the square of the radius and the fourth power of the absolute surface temperature. . Walls are covered in marmarino, plaster mixed with crushed marble, made smooth and glossy or textured depending on direction. Surfaces reflect light in different ways and catch the jewel-like colours of clothes. Suspended above your head, Ingo Maurer's dream-like creation floats in space. It is made of fine silvery mesh to which are attached hundreds of silver leaves. They move with the wind from gold fans encased en·case tr.v. en·cased, en·cas·ing, en·cas·es To enclose in or as if in a case. en·case  ment n. in the mesh body and cast drifting
shadows over the inner wall.
At the back of the shop, colour has been used to articulate and make sense of a twist in the building's geometry, and to mark off a changing area. The pale grey concrete floor changes here to dark blue and cubicles cubicles individual cow bed spaces separated by half height and half length partitions. Usually located in loose housing cow accommodation in which the cow is free to wander at will. are hidden behind a screen of brilliant pink plaster, stretched to infinity by a mirrored wall. 1 Entrance and shop window onto Savile Row. 2 Ground floor, with glass and steel stairs, and translucent bridge admitting daylight to basement. 3 From sales desk to Conduit Street window. Stairs lead to menswear mens·wear also men's wear n. Clothing for men. menswear Noun clothing for men menswear n → confección f de caballero in the basement of the shop. 4 Sales desk, tables for displaying clothes, and simple clothes rails. At the back, pink plastered screen in front of changing cubicles. 1 entrance 2 showroom 3 sales desk 4 changing cubicles 5 translucent glass bridge Architect Stanton Williams, London lighting Ingo Maurer, Concord Lighting Decorative plaster Perucchetti Associates, Davies Keeling keeling the marking of ewes by the ram when they are mated by the marking on the ewe of paint or chalk from the sternum of the ram. Townbridge Photographs Peter Cook/VIEW |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion