Fashion brand Balenciaga has opened its first retail location in Berlin, which continues the brand's Raw Architecture aesthetic and boasts monolithic concrete slabs and distressed surfaces.
The Grade II-listed exterior of the fashion label’s new retail location belies its brutalist ground floor interiors, which are all slabs of concrete and strip lighting. The design is part of Balenciaga’s ‘Raw Architecture’ concept which, according to the fashion house, mixes elements from construction sites and abandoned spaces with more refined features.
Mirrored glass, grey curtains and aluminium shelving cover the walls in front of and between the aged concrete, while thin metal clothes railings add a touch of delicacy, yet underline the store's industrial setting.
"Heavily aged hanging bars add to a reduced material palette and survey of elements representative of varying eras, at once emphasizing the vastness of their space and the complexity of urban experience," said the fashion house.
The Raw Architecture aesthetic is carried over to the store's furnishings, with distressed, worn-leather seating placed in groups of four throughout the store to add to its decaying look. Balenciaga explained that it used aged and distressed concrete in an effort to "echo Berlin's modernist architecture legacy".
