Architects transform the windows of Xintiandi shopping centre, Shanghai

Dexter Moren Associates’ frame of Mikado game sticks obscures the façade of Franc Franc, a Japanese home-furnishings store

(Image credit: press)

By Ellen Himelfarb

last updated 28 October 2022

in News

The customers at Shanghai’s upmarket fashion plaza Xintiandi don’t generally come to window shop. They come to buy. But as of last weekend they’ve had a reason to loiter outside that much longer.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has partnered with the mall’s developer, Shui On Land, to transform (‘decorate’ being a gross understatement) a strip of shop windows with statement ‘art-chitecture’.

Some of the UK’s highest profile architects – industry leaders like Zaha Hadid and Will Alsop, perhaps more attuned to designing iconic cultural institutions – are participating. RIBA hopes the initiative will show another side to Britain’s treasured exports. At the same time, the project brings a cultural element to the retail experience.

Nine installations were unveiled on the weekend, including Dexter Moren Associates’ frame of Mikado game-sticks around the façade of Franc Franc, a Japanese home-furnishings store. Agnès b.’s storefront gets a mini streetscape in towers of brick by Robin Lee Architecture. Studio Glowacka have taken on the high-end Chinese fashion designer Nisiss with a climbing frame-like clothes horse for hanging the label’s current lines. And Erect Architecture built a giant, interactive weaver’s loom for the South Korean lifestyle shop Hanii Y.

This is RIBA’s fourth year in the window-dressing business. The previous three outings were for the Regent Street Windows project in central London, for which they made over some of the street’s most enduring shopfronts, along with some international newcomers.

At Shanghai’s Xintiandi, RIBA has the opportunity to raise awareness of British design on a smaller scale than, say, Foster + Partners’ Beijing Airport scheme. And it’s quite literally a foot in the door of China’s lucrative retail industry.

The ‘windows’ initiative forms part of the six-month UK Now festival, the biggest showcase of British creative output in China to date – though the installations will be on site only until 11 October.

Erect Architecture built a giant weaver’s loom for the South Korean lifestyle shop Hanii Y

Fashion brands JNBY and Croquis have had their joint space taken on by Moxon Architects, who have created a 'flock' of triangular panels inside and outside the store

A tubular landscape, also by Moxon Architects, inside the two brands store — A tubular landscape, also by Moxon Architects, inside the two brands' store

Aberrant Architecture built an interactive racetrack for the concept store MF Art+

Studio Glowacka transformed Nisiss, the high-end Chinese brand, with an intricate display structure for suspending clothing

(Image credit: press)

Studio Glowacka transformed Nisiss, the high-end Chinese brand, with an intricate display structure for suspending clothing

(Image credit: press)

Xintiandi’s developers, Shui On, asked Studio Weave to create a pavilion of gold chain curtains for the mall’s south block piazza

Will Alsop’s new practice, All Design, blurs the boundaries between art, architecture and retail with a life-size painting with moving parts for SMUDGE, the fashion concept by JJ Lin

Nicholas Kirk Architects constructed a tree canopy made from thousands of plastic cable ties for Stay Real, the Taiwanese clothing and accessories brand created by singer Ashin from the band Mayday

Based in London, Ellen Himelfarb travels widely for her reports on architecture and design. Her words appear in The Times, The Telegraph, The World of Interiors, and The Globe and Mail in her native Canada. She has worked with Wallpaper* since 2006.