Mallorca’s Voramar Supermarket is no ordinary grocery store. Situated in the Port of Pollensa, this distinctive destination combines local produce with architectural grit. Designed by Minimal Studio – winner of the Gold award at this year’s Japan International Design Pioneer Awards – the space has been reimagined as a brutalist wonderland.
Tour this brutalist supermarket in Spain
Voramar is a fully functioning supermarket, with an extensive wine cellar, a takeaway section and an array of produce. Yet, Minimal Studio’s project – named Plastic Box – goes beyond conventional retail design, transforming the supermarket into a site of architectural exploration. Let’s step inside.
The supermarket is encased in a monolithic concrete shell, exuding material austerity. Sculptural counters, steel shelving and polished floors all echo brutalist architecture’s language, while overhead, a modular ceiling composed of more than a thousand plastic crates gives an industrial edge, while also filtering light to cast shifting geometric shadows throughout the day. The contrast between the unadorned façade, which is marked by dark portal entrances, and the brightly illuminated interior captures the quintessential sensory experience of entering a supermarket.
Plastic Box is more than an exercise in aesthetics; it serves as a critique of consumer culture, symbolised by the oppressive presence of the stacked crates. The use of brutalist aesthetics – which emerged in the midcentury and reflected the modern construction techniques that enabled mass housing, later resented for its perceived soullessness – also resonates with the commentary.
Brutalism is often criticised for its not-exactly-sustainable properties (due largely to its historic use of concrete, hence the emergence of movements like eco-brutalism). Plastic Box challenges that legacy and embraces a circular approach: the plastic crates are recycled and integrate ventilation and rainwater collection systems, and all elements are repurposed from industrial contexts.
Minimal Studio’s supermarket not only reinvents the urban commercial space – offering a true immersion for brutalism enthusiasts – but also asks us to interrogate it.
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