Inside Christian de Portzamparc’s showstopping Home of Dior, Beijing

In Beijing’s ritzy Sanlitun district, the place luxurious retail jostles for consideration amid the capital’s kinetic sprawl, Christian de Portzamparc has conjured Home of Dior Beijing, the Pritzker Prize laureate’s third fee for the French home after Seoul (2015) and Geneva (2024). From each angle, the constructing – head-turning in its outer sheath of gigantic white petals – is his most bold: a freestanding temple to vogue that channels the very gesture of couture into architectural kind.

Not like its Korean and Swiss counterparts – which share the identical petal vocabulary however emerged from present streetscapes with two or three facades apiece – Dior’s largest retailer in China stands uncovered on all 4 sides inside Kengo Kuma’s Taikoo Li Sanlitun North growth. This 360-degree visibility introduced Portzamparc with each alternative and dilemma. Early iterations that wrapped petals constantly across the perimeter proved visually overwhelming. The answer? Alternating these signature resin shells – 14 in whole, every formed in another way – with hovering panels of handcrafted golden glass tiles whose subtly various surfaces shimmer and breathe between the sculptural volumes.

Inside Home of Dior, Beijing

The petal varieties themselves hint their lineage to the Dior atelier, capturing that decisive second when flat material transforms into three-dimensional silhouette by reducing and draping. In Beijing, Portzamparc pushes this vocabulary additional, sculpting every 65-foot-tall factor to evoke the caryatids of Athens’ historical Acropolis: sleek, vertical, dignified. Constructed utilizing resin-casting strategies in a manufacturing facility situated simply exterior Beijing, the petals spent 18 months in manufacturing.

The golden tile panels – a nod to imperial China, the place such hues have been reserved for royalty – required equally exacting craftsmanship. Their placement creates essential respiration area, breaking the mass whereas producing a play of shadows that shifts all through the day. At night time, the constructing turns into a lantern, petals backlit from inside, curves casting elegant shadows throughout the plaza.

‘This mission has taken 4 years, and it is a dream come true,’ says Delphine Arnault, chairman and CEO of Christian Dior Couture. That dream rises 5 tales full of garments and equipment: the bottom stage hosts Monsieur Dior, Anne-Sophie Pic’s restaurant in a separate wing with after-hours entry; flooring one and two current the ladies’s Dior universe; three belongs to males’s.