Lafayette Anticipations partners with artists like Jan Martens. Image credit: Galeries Lafayette
French department store chain Galeries Lafayette is hoping to foster innovation and new ideas of creators and artists through architecture and events by opening its foundation in a public space.
Galeries Lafeyette's Lafayette Anticipations will open in March of 2018 to allow artists of all kinds to be a part of new exhibits, performances, workshops, debates, public outreach and more. Located in a 19th century industrial building in France, the space will create a physical presence for the retailer's Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette.
Architectural space
Established in 2013, Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette's home will be at 9 rue du Plâtre in Paris. The foundation's Lafayette Anticipation building will be open to the public.
Piloted by its president Guillaume Houzé, the Fondation works to provide a hub for artists of all kinds including contemporary art, design and fashion. Galeries Lafayette hopes to harbor their passion and provide resources as well as a community to make progress.
Galeries Lafayette claims it is the first multidisciplinary center of its kind located in France.
Architect Rem Koolhaas is spearheading the project with his firm OMA. The space will be more than 20,000 square feet and featuring what Galeries Lafayette is calling the “Exhibition Tower.”
The courtyard will feature the glass tower, which is comprised of four mobile platforms. Each new exhibit that makes Lafayette Anticipations its limited-time home will be able to reconfigure the tower in a different way.
Exhibition Tower will be able to be redesigned in 40 varying ways, hoping to create a space that is inherently flexible.
Lafayette Anticipations will also feature a restaurant and store along with a section for young audiences, space for production workshops and 800 square feet of exhibition space.
When it is complete, Lafayette Anticipations will have taken three years to finish.
There will be three to four exhibitions each year as well as performances and a workshop series.
Bricks-and-mortar importance
Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette managing director François Quintin will take the position of selecting each artist, as well as a curatorial collective that will be renewed every three years.
The French department store chain has often innovated in the bricks-and-mortar space beyond only its Fondation. For instance, Galeries Lafayette recently upped its global presence with a new bricks-and-mortar location in Istanbul.
Galeries Lafayette opened its first Turkish flagship through a partnership with the DEMSA Group, a local player that assists brands entering the market. DEMSA Group also works with a slew of luxury players, including Tom Ford, Gucci, Lanvin and British retailer Harvey Nichols, to establish their brands in Turkey (see more).
The department store also recently dispensed its fashion and lifestyle expertise with a shopping experience geared toward tourists.
Paris is an especially popular shopping destination for foreign visitors, but a drop in tourists has plagued the City of Light after concerns of continued terror attacks post-November 2015. Department stores such as Galeries Lafeyette have been hit hard due to the fewer number of visitors as their bricks-and-mortar locations are frequent tourist spots (see more).