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Tokyo Hipsters ClubBuilding a brand spanking new store from the foundations up is usually the preserve of European luxury brands, but down in Harajuku, a huge new concrete monolith called Tokyo Hipsters Club is an exception to the rule.
With three floors, including a gallery, book store and rooftop cafe besides the retail space, THC is the brainchild of Kobe-based Japanese fashion giant World, whose annual sales top 230 billion yen.
World drafted in British designer Tom Dixon, creative director of Habitat UK, to undertake his first-ever foray into the realm of architecture.
Described by Dixon as a "pleasantly brutal space," this foreboding concrete box is being billed as a hangout for rebellious fashionistas, but style-sensitive shoppers expecting to be amazed are likely to come away feeling cheated.
"Tokyo Hipsters Club is a piece of antiarchitecture by a nonarchitect," explains Dixon.
"The shape is defined by the allowable height within the restrictions imposed by the city of Tokyo; the materials defined by speed of construction; the internal spaces defined by the earthquake regulations."
Starting with the concept of "aristocracy gone wrong," Dixon's big idea for this edifice was to transpose a traditional British gentlemen's club into the setting of 21st-century Tokyo.
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2/12/2005 | Viewed 10,918 time(s)
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