Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati has designed a flagship store in Miami for French fashion brand Celine. The two-story shop is located in the city’s design district, with the ground floor serving as an exhibition space, while the upper level contains shoes and ready-to-wear collection.
The studio has decked out the store’s facade, walls, and floors in Brazilian Pinta Verde marble. Held by concrete pillars that connect the entire building to its foundation, the ground floor has been conceived as the interior of a canopy. Here, ‘the virtual world exists in parallel with the physical’, says Valerio Olgiati.
Olgiati cuts away parts of the basement’s ceiling to insert two pyramid-shaped volumes, which burst through into the shop’s ground floor – one forms a pitched stairway, while the other accommodates the peaked top of a chunky concrete column that sits directly underneath.
Above, deep inside the marble, is a different type of space where Céline’s clothing is displayed. Here thick slabs of marble have been used as display stands for shoes and handbags, while clothing items are hung on simple brushed-brass railings. “More tent than a boutique, this is a place where an internal universe can be imagined,” Olgiati explains.
The Miami store adds onto Celine’s third retail store in the US, following its locations in New York and Beverly Hills.