RETAIL AND PRESENTATION
Unfortunately out of print
Dear Readers,
Hardly a day goes by without the local press having to bewail the closing down of a retail store – major cities as well as small towns are affected by the decline in stores. As a rule, online trading and large-scale shopping malls are held responsible for this. Nonetheless, the German Retail Association (Handels-verband Deutsch¬land – HDE) instilled a little sense of optimism amongst its members earlier this year: at the press conference on 30th January, HDE Chief Executive Office Stefan Genth forecasted an increase in turnover of 1.5 percent for 2015 and thus “…a slight growth in sales in the German retail sector for the sixth consecutive year.” However, inner-city locations are still on a drip-feed. According to a survey conducted by the Institute for Retail Research (Institut für Handelsforschung) in Cologne, meanwhile every fifth consumer buys less in city centres. The frequently invoked shop hours shall do the trick. Federal states and municipalities were required to make use of legal latitudes, HDE demanded. Those retailers who do not want to wait for such action do well to analyse their customer structure and work out new concepts. Here, architects and interior designers can help and effectively turn fresh ideas into attractive shopping experiences. We have chosen several inspiring examples from countless implemented shopfitting projects all over the world and present them to you in this shopfitting issue. Patisseries, boutiques, flagship stores, malls, market halls or shopping centres – in Belo Horizonte, Montreal, New York, Istanbul, Mallorca, Munich, Frankfurt or Stutt¬gart – they are all distinguished by a high level of design quality and an intelligent concept. Perfect examples and most warmly recommended as an interesting read: Shopping City in Bad Münstereifel (page 130) and the Open Space Project in Cologne (from page 138 onwards). What our columnists, the Reding Brothers, came up with on the topic of shopping page 64), is – as always – not only very entertaining, it is movingly real.
Best wishes
Petra Stephan, Dipl.-Ing.
Chief Editor
Architect