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LIBESKIND TAKES ON RETAIL

Acclaimed Ground Zero architect designing mall in Switzerland

BY SUSAN THORNE

Daniel Libeskind, the acclaimed architect of Berlin’s Jewish Museum and New York City’s Ground Zero reconstruction, is going to the mall.

Libeskind is the designer of Westside, a shopping and leisure center planned for Bern, Switzerland, by grocery retailer Migros Aare, the country’s largest retail company.

This is the first time the Polish-born architect has applied his talents to a primarily retail-entertainment project, but he sees it as an important challenge and, furthermore, defends the cultural and architectural significance of malls. “For too long, architects have had contempt for these venues,” Libeskind told SCT. “But I think one should pay attention to the places which are important to the public and to people’s everyday lives, not only museums and highbrow projects. [Shopping centers] are great attractors of the public and need to be given shape, form and functional qualities which celebrate life.”

Westside, currently going through the municipal planning permission process and scheduled for completion in 2006, is certainly no cookie-cutter mall. The roughly 1.5 million-square-foot (141,900-square-meter) center shares the futuristic, geometric look of some other Libeskind structures, its intersecting buildings zigzagging over a greenfield site with adjacent parkland. The interior spaces are equally eye-catching, with exposed structural beams crisscrossing walls and common-area ceilings at irregular angles.

  
Putting customers at ease makes them more likely to spend, says Westside’s project manager.
A fitness center will anchor the project.

While there is an open, airy feeling overall, Libeskind has created smaller, more intimate areas as well as larger ones. His general objective, he said, is to create a “fascinating and inspiring” space where people will “come back again and again, not just to shop or to swim but to enjoy the geometry of spaces, the relationship between indoors and outdoors, the light and the materials. I want the public to feel a part of it instead of feeling they are just abstract users. After all, it is not only merchandise and economics that drive such a project, but also the quality and atmosphere you provide to the people who will spend time there.”

Libeskind says designing the mall involved the same basic principles he has applied to his other projects. “Of course, it’s programmatically different from designing a museum,” he said. “But good architecture is good architecture — you’re dealing with materials, proportions, light and the public realm.” One special consideration, he points out, was the need to respect the design typology of retailers in developing the center concept.

Migros says it is seeking financial partners for the $260 million project.

Westside’s location ensures that it won’t be difficult to find. The site straddles Highway A1, a major north-south European artery that bisects the site so that traffic passes directly under the mall. “All those Germans vacationing in Spain and France — they have to drive right through Westside,” said Martin Schläppi, the Migros project director for the center.

Bern, Switzerland’s capital city, was a natural choice of location because Migros Aare has its headquarters there. (The holdings of parent company Migros GmbH include food products, fitness centers and language schools.) The city also sits on the divide between the country’s German- and French-speaking halves.

Libeskind’s showpiece structures will house a combination of leisure-oriented offerings plus a Ramada hotel, a home for the elderly and some convention facilities. There will be 43,000 square feet of restaurants, a Europlex multiscreen cinema and about 323,000 square feet of book, electronics, fashion and sports-related retail shops. (Roughly one-third of the retail gross leasable area comprises Migros-owned outlets.) The larger retail stores will be a 26,900-square-foot Migros supermarket and a home improvement supplies store.

The project’s anchor, though, will be a 144,210-square-foot fitness and wellness center. Migros operates 16 other fitness centers under the M-Fitnesspark brand, but this one, which will be its flagship, will carry the Westside name. It will offer a saltwater pool, indoor and outdoor bathing areas, massage services, a rooftop sauna and a “meditational” bath with images of natural settings projected on the walls, and sounds to match.

The children’s area will feature slides, waterfalls, waves and a pool with a current to swim against. In addition, the health and beauty offerings of some of the retail shops will complement the fitness features.

These and other facilities are what will set Westside apart from other malls, according to Schläppi; the high proportion of total area devoted to leisure will make it as much a destination for relaxing and socializing as for shopping. The strong leisure orientation is a response to trends revealed in the company’s market research. Simply put, shoppers have less time to shop and less interest in shopping, Schläppi says. “Instead, they want to use their time to meet their friends, to go for a meal and [for] other leisure pursuits.”

The increase in single-occupant households in Bern has also driven this component. These singles, who account for more than half the city’s household total and include both young and old, have created a demand for safe, congenial, meeting places such as Westside. The center can be a leisure destination for them and for families alike, Schläppi says. Business nomads staying at the hotel can also enjoy this unusual setting, he suggests.

This will not be your father’s food court, Libeskind promises.

Consequently, ambience is critical, which is where the investment in cutting-edge architecture comes in. “We need a special environment and a unique selling proposition to be unforgettable,” he said, explaining why they brought in Libeskind. While the chilly Swiss climate makes an open-air center impractical, Westside’s enclosed areas are bright and visually open, at least, to the outside.

“We wanted both a ‘wow’ effect and places to relax, sit down and look out at the green surroundings,” he said. “It has to be a good setting, a comfortable place where people can feel at home.”

Accordingly, the center layout includes plenty of “nonconsuming surfaces” — places for visitors to sit and relax without having to make a purchase. This approach may not tie in directly with merchandise, but it can still help the bottom line, Schläppi opines. “A good setting can give you the feeling of being on vacation, and that means having your wallet open.”

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