Jeweller’s shop Ehinger-Schwarz

On the left-hand side of the listed building from the 1930’s, in 1992 the jeweller’s shop of the Ehinger-Schwarz was established. The entrance is between two shop windows, which inside form an asymmetrical arch.
You don’t step into the room at a right angle but you follow the room’s diagonal axis. To the left of the door, above a concrete plinth the shop window is continued as a display case, opposite of which we find a semi-high sales counter. The entrance area is bluish, otherwise the sales room is very conservative in terms of colour. Natural shades dominate: grey, beige and sand.
There are four wall-to-wall steel beams beneath the metal grid ceiling, cutting the room diagonally. They bear the slates of unpainted concrete suspended from steel cables.
The pieces of jewellery are presented in these concrete slates’ glazed rectangular cutouts. Presentation aside, the nine concrete display cases also have a spatial function – they subdivide the sales area. As they are suspended from movable metal rails, the untreated concrete slates can be flexibly used as partitions to get different spatial effects, dependent on what angle and arrangement one uses.
The room’s charm is found in the contrast between raw and unpolished concrete slates and the finely cut, lustrous pieces of jewellery made of gold, pearls and precious stones.

Author: Petra Metzger (koelnarchitektur) / Editorial baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 25.02.2021

Categories:
Interior Architecture » Retailing