Opened earlier this month, the new conceptual store for Persol is the first to be designed by David Chipperfield Architects Milan for the Italian eyewear company. The store is located on the Via Fiori Chiari in a building where conceptual artist Piero Manzoni lived and worked. The conceptual store brings together archaeology and technology, with the contemporary insertion not prevailing over the historic architecture.
Both current and historic Persol products are displayed against aluminium wings; curved curtains forming niches that reveal the regenerated building fabric behind. The eyewear is placed on glass and aluminium shelves that slide into the gaps between the horizontal metal bands, which also provide electrical connection. On the ceiling, lighting fixtures, together with domed skylights, illuminate the space with indirect and diffused ambient lighting that recalls natural light.
This is the first store from a collaboration between David Chipperfield Architects and Luxottica, and the first Persol Store in Europe.
Image © Gerhardt Kellerman