Celine · Miami, USA

Given a relatively open brief, Valerio Olgiati has run wild with Brazilian Pinta Verde Marble—it covers most surfaces of the store; its unique aqua-blue coloration rendering the space both contemporary and sumptuous. The double-storey flagship store has been designed for escapism, creating for Céline’s shoppers a “virtual world that exists in parallel with the physical”, Olgiati explains. Whilst the top floor functions as a normal store, with shoes and ready to wear items displayed on thick slabs of marble and elegant brass railing systems, the bottom floor is conceived of as something else entirely. Acting as an exhibition space—large enough to house full ready to wear collections—its ceiling features two pyramidal cut-outs whose volumes burst through to the upper floor, one becoming a pitched stairwell and the other, a sculptural intervention in the shop space. This ceiling design was conceived of as the canopy of a magic tent, creating a space where the architects propose “an internal universe can be imagined”.

CÉLINE
154 NE 41st Street
116 & 216
Miami, Florida 33137