Filip Galko

Flagship store and showroom in Prague

Jorge Louis Borges wrote in his book This Craft of Verse: „The taste of the apple is neither in the apple itself – the apple canot taste itself – nor in the mounth of the eater. It requires a contact between them.“ I attempted this mutual symbiosis between a observer and glowing object in my architectural design.“

Lasvit is an established company known throughout the world, which continues in famous tradition of Czech glassmaking and represents the good name of the Czech Republic abroad. The purpose of this diploma thesis is to design a Flagship Store for this company. The object is mainly for brand presentation, product assortment presentation, product sales, presentation of collections and presentation of custom made installations. This primary function is complemented by café-bar areas, a place for telling the story of Czech glassmaking and offices for service staff. The whole object is designed to offer the opportunity to conduct various events such as lectures, presentations, fashion and design shows.

The concept of the project is build on the contrast of two worlds. The first is a purely purposeful and pragmatic service base, and the other is the main representative space. This generous "production space" gives space to stand out as the main actors of the show, which are the pendant lights themselves. With help of the lighting and projection techniques, the real situation of the target interior for exampl customer's living rooms directly simulates on the projection screen, and its helps spatial imagination and makes it easier to select the right luminaire. Lamps are similar to theatrical backdrops hanging on movable traction devices, so several different lights can be exchanged in the simulated space for several minutes. Independence from the outside lighting environment is ensured by black-out hinge systems that are capable of creating an ideal environment for exposing of the lighting. At night, these curtains are pulled out and the light can spread steadily along the streets of historic Prague. This unlimited spatial solution enables transformation for other kinds of exhibitions and thus provides maximum freedom for other authors of "theatrical plays" as well as other cultural events such as vernissages, fashion shows, concerts, lectures. The other part of the building forms the already mentioned background, which is very pragmatically divided into 6 or 7 aboveground floors. The base provides space for minor and no less important features such as a café-bar, warehouses, exhibiting a small assortment, office space for staff, etc. Likewise, the outer look is contrasting with the inner world. It is a strictly orthogonal raster consisting of prefa concrete parts that does not provide any previous information about the unstable world inside the building.