Description: Located in the business center of the Chinese capital, the new Louis Vuitton flagship store is, we believe, the optimal place to establish a new relationship between the French luxury brand and Chinese culture. The mediator of this re-contextualization is calligraphy.Considered the highest visual expression of Chinese culture, calligraphy achieves the merging of past and present in the brushstroke. In its analogy to natural phenomena, without direct representation, the brush form remains eternally contemporary.Our proposal seeks to achieve a rich, multilayered visual effect through the implementation of this unique art form. The façade is conceived as a white canvas on which the abstract brush stroke is applied. The areas of the stroke reflect the intense movement of the area, literal (passing cars and pedestrians) and metaphorical (economic development).

The stroke emerges through a series of stainless steel strips with undulating profiles, shaped according to the intensity of the ink. Over the course of the day, the sun creates a shifting play of light and shadow across this three-dimensional “painting”, even as in space the surface’s transparency changes with the angle of the viewer. At night, artificial lighting takes over and the façade becomes a spectacular, abstract, screen.