Lang space

Window shopping is a favorite pastime of mine, ogling at things i can't afford, imagining some kind of future where those objects will make me a very happy man. Very often, pleasure is derived from the products that on the racks and the retail space is secondary, a mere container. But on rare occasions this container is elevated to the realm of the sublime.



Designed in collaboration with Gluckman Mayner Architects of New York, the store is conceived as a minimal gallery space with monolithic black boxes set parallel to each other on bare concrete floors. A cursory glance through the window would yield little signs of clothes. Greeted by a Jenny Holzer ticker tape installation, running texts of poetry and transcribed lovers' whispers (devoid of emotion), one enters the store. Delving further into the space the back sides of the monoliths are slowly revealed. The solidity breaks down as the monoliths are found to be hollow shells and within them pieces of Lang's urban uniform sway lightly on the metal rails.

The black monoliths evokes tombs and mausoleums , perhaps an omen of things to come. The space seemingly cold and sterile exudes a certain vitality and ethereal lightness and this lightness pervades even the objects within the space. The space is decidedly spiritual, and the contents, sacred objects (relics) which one would use and cherish forever. This is the temple of the future.

And if this is the future that Lang envisioned, I wouldn't mind living in it, even if it's controlled by some giant computer spewing out commands on a ticker tape display.




pictures from Gluckman Mayner Architects