A tall tactile lantern-topped building, Marc Jacobs’ new store in Tokyo by the interior designer Stephan Jaklitsch is the latest architectural addition to Omotesando Avenue in Tokyo, a mix of renowned internationally designed buildings in this quiet residential neighbourhood.

Next door to Herzog & de Meuron’s Prada, the three floor structure with its differing façade treatments reads like Japanese packaging.

Jaklitsch has offices in New York and Tokyo and is responsible for all Jacobs’ stores globally.

Jacobs loves Japanese aesthetics and his Tokyo store emphasises the craft of architecture.

The design of the transparent and open ground extends the granite floor and tactile refinement of the design to the street. From here the striated structure above it which houses women’s ready to wear can be seen.

Made of custom-designed terracotta tiles broken around the edges to given them a jagged texture, and adhered to the building with a clip system, it also serves as a passive heating and cooling system because the tiles sit off the building and allow air to circulate beneath them.

Inside this level, a black and white palette echoes the façade’s dramatic tonal play, while the upper level has the intimate feel of a living room like Jacobs’ other Collection stores (documented in Jaklitsch’s Habits, Patterns and Algorithms book, 2009, ORO Editions), with warm sycamore shelving and seating by Christian Liaigre and hand-blown black and clear glass pendant lamps.

The top portion of the building is made of perforated aluminium panels wrapped like tape around a substructure, giving it a visible pattern.

It is also a kosakubutsu, a structural device that allows a doubling of the building’s visual height above two occupied floors, and which at night becomes a glowing beacon.

Photography by Liao Yusheng

Stephan Jaklitsch
sjaklitsch.com