Saint Laurent Champs Elysees
Rising over four levels, more than 1000m2 of display are structured into twelve distinct rooms, including a double-height street-facing gallery space and a roof garden terrace. This new design concept, developed in close collaboration with creative director Anthony Vaccarello, experiments with notions of display and pushes the spatial and material relationships between the raw and the refined, the rough and the precious.
A specially commissioned light sculpture by conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans announces the presence of the House to the street. The custom-cast white bronze facade references the historic context and frames views into the double-height gallery – a space left raw with exposed layers of Parisian stone and a hand-finished internal corduroy concrete facade.
Internally, vivid marble parquets are contrasted with gallery-style concrete floors and as-found wall surfaces. Oversized tables act as focus points and offer the possibility for gathering. Large floating lightboxes provide a graphic daylight-like illumination that creates areas of spatial concentration.
Large displays line the walls like artworks, giving space and attention to the individual beauty of the products. The displays are made from precious marbles providing a stark relief to the muted texture of surrounding wall surfaces. Translucent black glass walls reveal glimpses of glowing products behind.
Curving black timber staircases, sculpted with carved balustrades, provide a sinuous connection between floors. The basement room is luminous and surrounded by back-lit, handmade, glass walls. Overlooking Champs-Élysées on the top floor, a large front room has a studio-like feel with specially designed carpets and soft seating areas. All furniture by artist Donald Judd and architect Rudolph Schindler.
