Department store Peek & Cloppenburg
The owner of the chain of fashion department stores chose Renzo Piano with a very clear vision. He was taken by the traveling pavilion that this Italian architect designed in the early 1980s for the computer company IBM. However, the sophisticated wooden arched structure with a transparent filling had to grow to enormous dimensions to accommodate 23,000 m² of retail space. The resulting form also managed to ease the congested urban environment. The department store partially sits above a busy traffic artery and its shape helps create a peaceful square in front of the medieval church. The project consists of two parts - one is a solid cubic form and the other is a transparent organically curved structure. The basic elements for glazing the rounded shell are based on principles already known from greenhouses of the 19th century. The main load-bearing elements of the outer shell consist of prestressed wooden arches spaced 2.5 meters apart. Steel strips between the wooden beams support the glass panels. The ridge of the glass roof lowers in the middle of the building to avoid height competition with the neighboring Antoniterkirche church. The transparency of the structure and the lightness of the construction significantly contrast with the surrounding buildings. The house emerges from the oppressive post-war development. Rather than the materials used, it serves as an exemplary model for its urbanist conception. At the ceremonial opening of P&C, Renzo Piano shared in an interview his experiences from the first visit to the site in May 1999 and also his enjoyment of observing the behavior of people in his buildings: “You know, when I was here for the first time, I was much more surprised by the people than the buildings. I love people, and that's no joke. When we arrived yesterday, I stood in front of the department store for 15 minutes and observed people. For 15 minutes, I watched short stories of passersby”.
A Clear Flagship
Renzo Piano's new department store in the center of Cologne meets all expectations and creates new ones. Today's architecture is a problem in Cologne. High-rise projects along the sight lines of the cathedral have led to anger from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the museum center at Neumarkt is still just a hole in the ground, the listed opera by Wilhelm Riphahn narrowly escaped demolition, and the department store by Renzo Piano for Peek & Cloppenburg stood for over two years as an unfinished building in the middle of the historic center. The reason for the incomplete shell was a long-standing dispute regarding the building's stability between the investor and the construction company Hochtief. In the end, both parties quietly agreed to complete the building, which was fortunate for Cologne, as it has once again issued some positive news after a long time.
The Same Urban Planning Problems
Renzo Piano managed to create a work of art in a location where no building site was originally designated. The department store with an area of approximately 23,000 square meters was built right next to the entrance of a tunnel on one of the transit routes. By cleverly and carefully positioning the building, several urban planning problems were solved at once. First, along the narrow Antongasse street, where Piano placed a new infill into the fragmented block of houses and created a new facade to the bright stone-clad mass of the building. Here, a glass wall rises steeply to a height of 30 meters, extending over a length of more than one hundred meters. This avoided the monotony of a stone surface interrupted only by a few windows.
At the back, in a rather uninviting intersection of two traffic routes, amidst buildings from the 1960s, Piano placed a gigantic lantern right next to the entrance to the tunnel, giving the nondescript underpass a unique face. Above the ground-level canopy, the building creates one large glowing mass, its outline tracing a parabolic curve visible from afar to all who pass by. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that the transparent mass comprises a complex facade of bent glass.
The multiple-curved glass shell stretches over 130 meters in length. The facade acts like a sail stretched in front of the building. The computer-generated mass allows for connections with all sorts of organic images. The fluttering giant blob extends from the tunnel entrance to Schildergasse, the main shopping street in Cologne and one of the most expensive addresses in Germany, elegantly retreating before the small medieval Antoniterkirche church. Thus, the shopping street visually culminates in a noble square, branching out like a calm river arm and, among other things, seeping onto the terrace of the adjacent café hidden behind the church's buttress. Piano's glass marvel, situated in the urban confusion of derelict post-war construction and cheap decorative boxes, captures attention with its reflection of the sky, clouds, and the Gothic church, enriching passersby with a bit of poetry.
The internal arrangement is far more pragmatic. Similar to Richard Meier, Gottfried Böhm, and other renowned architects from whom the owner of Harro Cloppenburg commissioned his “department stores for world metropolises”, Renzo Piano was also obliged to provide the same retail areas with wooden flooring, stone tiling, and multifunctional ceilings.
Pragmatic Necessity Inside the Department Store of a World Metropolis
However, architecture must yield to the beauty and luxury of the garments. Likewise, it must allow for gastronomic events. Practical considerations also led to the fact that the slightly curved facade is not very perceivable from the three retail floors, as the spacious floors required additional escape stairs, further complicating the perception of the glass curves of the facade from the interior. However, from the entrance, it is possible to see all the way up under the glass roof and view the individual floors, which protrude into the atrium like the decks of a luxury yacht. The glass shell bends like a stretched bellows and retreats from the ceiling structures of the individual floors, creating a 30-meter-high open space. Sixty-six arched wooden ribs, which are intricately prestressed with steel cables, play the main role in this architectural spectacle, for which Renzo Piano Building Workshop has all the technical prerequisites required by the construction company from the author.
From the highest floor, which features a vaulted fully glass roof with a series of wooden beams resembling an inverted keel of a ship's hull, a view of the city in the background is available through the glass facade. However, this voluminous structure opens only on special occasions. Unsuitable climatic conditions and the absence of escape stairs do not allow for regular use. From the outside shape, which captivates its surroundings, it becomes merely a byproduct that can only serve as a pilgrimage site for architectural tourists and astronomers. Also compelled by pragmatism! From Schildergasse, Piano definitely shows clear signs of the flagship of the P&C brand. After so many ridiculously packaged department stores, a quality new building has emerged, which may find successors. Since the new archdiocesan museum Kolumba by Peter Zumthor is to be completed soon, there is hope in Cologne like there hasn't been for a long time.
A Clear Flagship
Renzo Piano's new department store in the center of Cologne meets all expectations and creates new ones. Today's architecture is a problem in Cologne. High-rise projects along the sight lines of the cathedral have led to anger from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the museum center at Neumarkt is still just a hole in the ground, the listed opera by Wilhelm Riphahn narrowly escaped demolition, and the department store by Renzo Piano for Peek & Cloppenburg stood for over two years as an unfinished building in the middle of the historic center. The reason for the incomplete shell was a long-standing dispute regarding the building's stability between the investor and the construction company Hochtief. In the end, both parties quietly agreed to complete the building, which was fortunate for Cologne, as it has once again issued some positive news after a long time.
The Same Urban Planning Problems
Renzo Piano managed to create a work of art in a location where no building site was originally designated. The department store with an area of approximately 23,000 square meters was built right next to the entrance of a tunnel on one of the transit routes. By cleverly and carefully positioning the building, several urban planning problems were solved at once. First, along the narrow Antongasse street, where Piano placed a new infill into the fragmented block of houses and created a new facade to the bright stone-clad mass of the building. Here, a glass wall rises steeply to a height of 30 meters, extending over a length of more than one hundred meters. This avoided the monotony of a stone surface interrupted only by a few windows.
At the back, in a rather uninviting intersection of two traffic routes, amidst buildings from the 1960s, Piano placed a gigantic lantern right next to the entrance to the tunnel, giving the nondescript underpass a unique face. Above the ground-level canopy, the building creates one large glowing mass, its outline tracing a parabolic curve visible from afar to all who pass by. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that the transparent mass comprises a complex facade of bent glass.
The multiple-curved glass shell stretches over 130 meters in length. The facade acts like a sail stretched in front of the building. The computer-generated mass allows for connections with all sorts of organic images. The fluttering giant blob extends from the tunnel entrance to Schildergasse, the main shopping street in Cologne and one of the most expensive addresses in Germany, elegantly retreating before the small medieval Antoniterkirche church. Thus, the shopping street visually culminates in a noble square, branching out like a calm river arm and, among other things, seeping onto the terrace of the adjacent café hidden behind the church's buttress. Piano's glass marvel, situated in the urban confusion of derelict post-war construction and cheap decorative boxes, captures attention with its reflection of the sky, clouds, and the Gothic church, enriching passersby with a bit of poetry.
The internal arrangement is far more pragmatic. Similar to Richard Meier, Gottfried Böhm, and other renowned architects from whom the owner of Harro Cloppenburg commissioned his “department stores for world metropolises”, Renzo Piano was also obliged to provide the same retail areas with wooden flooring, stone tiling, and multifunctional ceilings.
Pragmatic Necessity Inside the Department Store of a World Metropolis
However, architecture must yield to the beauty and luxury of the garments. Likewise, it must allow for gastronomic events. Practical considerations also led to the fact that the slightly curved facade is not very perceivable from the three retail floors, as the spacious floors required additional escape stairs, further complicating the perception of the glass curves of the facade from the interior. However, from the entrance, it is possible to see all the way up under the glass roof and view the individual floors, which protrude into the atrium like the decks of a luxury yacht. The glass shell bends like a stretched bellows and retreats from the ceiling structures of the individual floors, creating a 30-meter-high open space. Sixty-six arched wooden ribs, which are intricately prestressed with steel cables, play the main role in this architectural spectacle, for which Renzo Piano Building Workshop has all the technical prerequisites required by the construction company from the author.
From the highest floor, which features a vaulted fully glass roof with a series of wooden beams resembling an inverted keel of a ship's hull, a view of the city in the background is available through the glass facade. However, this voluminous structure opens only on special occasions. Unsuitable climatic conditions and the absence of escape stairs do not allow for regular use. From the outside shape, which captivates its surroundings, it becomes merely a byproduct that can only serve as a pilgrimage site for architectural tourists and astronomers. Also compelled by pragmatism! From Schildergasse, Piano definitely shows clear signs of the flagship of the P&C brand. After so many ridiculously packaged department stores, a quality new building has emerged, which may find successors. Since the new archdiocesan museum Kolumba by Peter Zumthor is to be completed soon, there is hope in Cologne like there hasn't been for a long time.
Jörg Biesler, 15.9.2005
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