Tiffany & Co. Shanghai Store Features Jewelry-Inspired Facade Designed by MVRDV

Located in the Taikoo-Li Qiantan commercial development, Tiffany & Co. Store in Shanghai has a jewelry-inspired facade Designed by MVRDV, the exterior façade, made up of 6,988 hand-crafted glass “diamonds,” clearly evokes Tiffany’s famous jewelry designs. During the day, these elements reflect and refract the surroundings, creating a shimmering effect, while at night, the façade’s LED lighting allows the store to glow in an infinite array of colors.

The store occupies a prominent position on the central axis of Taikoo Li Qiantan, a shopping mall completed in 2021. With the southern half of this shopping area dedicated to a wide range of luxury brands, MVRDV’s design stands out from the crowd with a bold and deceptively simple concept: a diamond façade.

Despite its apparent simplicity, this idea is based on a deep understanding of Tiffany’s identity and history. The project is a continuation of MVRDV’s Tiffany façade design strategy, first implemented last year at Singapore Changi Airport. This approach pays homage to Tiffany’s legacy by focusing on concepts such as: innovative materialityA keen sense of three-dimensionalityand the ability to arouse wonder in spectators. In Shanghai, all of these principles find expression in the glass diamond screen. These are arranged to create a randomly scattered effect, lightening up for better visibility where needed, such as along the first-floor balcony that accompanies the store’s café.

Each of these glass diamonds measures 21 centimeters wide and 13 centimeters high, and weighs 1.5 kilograms. They are suspended from thin steel cables, covered in a mirrored steel finish and placed under high tension between the upper and lower frames of the structure. Specially designed steel fasteners, designed to be as small and discreet as possible, ensure that the diamonds do not move or rotate on their supports. Thanks to the attention to detail during the design, the façade uses only mechanical connections, allowing it to be completely disassembled and its parts reused or recycled in the future.

Similar to MVRDV’s previous project for the Tiffany store at Singapore Airport, the façade of the Shanghai store incorporates a characteristic element of the local environment, inspired in this case by the brilliant and colourful play of light on the Shanghai skyline. For this reason, the project integrates energy-efficient, colour-changing LED lighting into the upper and lower part of the façade. This allows the façade to be illuminated in any colour, including Tiffany Blue ®, with each colour brought to life by the refraction effects of the glass diamonds.

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Press release and photos courtesy of MVRDV