Louis vuitton, omotesando tokyo, Japan

This 3327 square-meter 
facility with 1000 square 
meters    of  retail  sales 
space is located in the 
heart of the Omotesando 
shopping district where 
such architects as Tadao 
Ando, Herzog and de 
Meuron, Kengo Kuma 

and Kazuyo Sejima are 
making fashion and art go well together. 
The ten-story structure devotes its four lower 
floors to a generous sales area and the rest of 
its space to offices, an event hall, VIP Lounge 
and penthouse, Jun Aoki’s building for Vuitton 
was conceived as a “pile of trunks” for this
 maker of suitcases and handbags. 
The structural system for these volumes, 
apparently stacked at random, is a 30-meter-high, 
three-dimensional frame containing six boxes that 
are shaped by composition of floor and wall plates. 

The structural system allows the building, which seems 
very open and light, to meet stringent Japansese earthouake 
construction standards. 
The most remarkable aspect of the building is its main 
façade, which is draped in a double layer with three 
different kinds   of metal mesh tabric and two kinds of 
polished stainless steel panels laid 50cm over glass  panels 
with a striped pattern. As the architect says, “the idea of 
using metal fabric was initially derived    from the idea of 
‘piling up trunks’. I thought the surface should be covered 
in fabric like trunks. At the same  time , because I did not
 want to realize them literally as enlarged trunks but as 
mirages, the doubleskin was proposed. The interior of the 
building was realized by the Architecture Department of 
Louis Yuitton, Paris .