Tiffany & Co. has reopened their store in Stuttgart’s Dorotheen Quartier, featuring a new façade designed by MVRDV. The latest in a series of Tiffany store façades designed by the Dutch architecture firm, MVRDV’s designers were inspired by Tiffany’s history of material innovation to create a façade of hand-crafted ceramic elements in the shape of diamonds. Invisibly mounted onto the glass storefront to give a “floating” effect, these diamonds have an iridescent finish that is reminiscent of the Favrile Glass patented by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1894.
When establishing an approach to designing façades for Tiffany, MVRDV’s designers developed a range of principles inspired by the Tiffany & Co.’s legacy brand that could be translated into fantastical, finely crafted, eye-catching architectural results. From the drive to experiment with materials to a strong sense of three-dimensionality – informed by the tactility of Tiffany jewellery and the refined geometry of diamond cuts – these principles guided the creation of the Stuttgart store.
The façade features 2,829 ceramic diamonds, mounted directly to the glass storefront using custom steel fixings. Mounted on both the outside and the inside of the glass, this gives the impression that visitors are surrounded in a dreamlike environment of floating diamonds. The density of these diamonds is adjusted to create transparency and opacity as required; around window displays and at the corner of the building, the diamonds “dissolve” to allow views into and out of the store.
Each diamond is cast by hand using a “slip-casting” method, then glazed in one of nine colours that make a gradient from Tiffany’s signature robin’s-egg blue to a pristine white. This colour gradient helps Tiffany to capture shopper’s attention, while also allowing the store to feel at home among the neutral colours of the Dorotheen Quartier.
The diamonds were manufactured by Koninklijke Tichelaar, the oldest ceramics manufacturer in the Netherlands and an expert in creating specialist glazes. In addition to the colours that make up the gradient on the façade, the diamonds are finished with an iridescent sheen, achieving a soft, dynamic finish that changes according to the lighting, weather, and viewing angle. This glaze was developed by Tichelaar in collaboration with MVRDV, and uses intentional variations in mineral composition and glazing temperature across the diamond surface to create a subtle, naturalistic sheen. The effect is a reference to Favrile glass, a sumptuously coloured, iridescent glass which was developed and patented by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the 1890s.
“In our façade design for the Stuttgart store, we tried to capture the sense of wonder and enchantment that has characterised the world of Tiffany & Co. ever since its inception”, says MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs. “Being surrounded by seemingly floating diamonds, with their shimmering iridescence, we hope will do justice to this history.”
Team:
Architect: MVRDV
Founding Partner in charge: Jacob van Rijs
Partner: Fokke Moerel
Design Team: Aser Giménez Ortega, Elien Deceuninck, Monica Di Salvo, Simone Costa, Natalia Lipczuk, Basak Gunalp, Tatiana Gurduza
Copyright: MVRDV Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries
Lighting: METIS Lighting
Contractor: SOMEC Mestieri Group
Photography: © Gionata Xerra Studio
Materials Used:
Ceramics: Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum
Lighting: METIS Lighting
