A Closer Look at Louis Vuitton’s Soaring Installation of Trunks at Its Temporary NYC Flagship
From almost any vantage point inside the temporary Louis Vuitton flagship on 57th Street in Manhattan, the presence of the four soaring installations of stacked trunks is seen and felt.
It’s a breathtaking composition of freestanding sculptures created by Shohei Shigematsu, a New York-based partner of the renowned OMA architectural firm. Shigematsu was also responsible for an immersive exhibition in Bangkok earlier this year capturing the history of Louis Vuitton.
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For the flagship’s atrium, Shigematsu assembled each tower with 90 Courrier Lozine Louis Vuitton trunks rising 16 meters high in four different configurations, twisting, zigzagging, counterbalanced or shifted. One tower is composed of trunks in the classic Monogram canvas; another utilizes trunks in the Rayée Stripe canvas with painted personalization, while a third tower is stacked with white Damier Azur canvas trunks; and the fourth has the metallic Monogram trunks.
“For me, whether it’s a temporary store or a permanent store maybe I don’t really change the way that I tackle the design. But I also think when it’s a temporary store, similar to pop-up stores, it gives you a level of freedom, mentally, to actually be a bit more experimental,” Shigematsu told WWD.
On 57th Street, “We wanted to create something specific to the location as well as, of course, specific to the brand. I think these towers actually reflect those two specificities. It’s a more site-specific installation, because the atrium is quite wide and you have so many different programs facing it, be it the restaurant, the VIP area, the escalators, the general circulation.
“We wanted to create a sculpture that wherever you are, you are actually looking into it from a different vantage point. You see a surprising scene of how the trunks can be stacked, not a typical, stable stack. It’s in a way unstable, with a kind of tension,” Shigematsu said. “It’s dramatic, but also really consisting of one single unit. It’s a very simple way of creating.” The trunks are affixed to each other by a concealed structural pillar, or spine, that runs through.
“Towers were perfect for the atrium in the store because it is so vertical, but also it’s kind of an homage to the verticality of Midtown Manhattan,” said Shigematsu.
“We proposed the tower,” Shigematsu said. “They [Louis Vuitton] changed certain things. They also commented on the materiality of the tower. It was a collaboration.”
The rear of the store offers another striking visual installation by Shigematsu. He used mirrored Louis Vuitton Keepall travel bags and mirrored Louis Vuitton Speedy classic city handbags. The bags are stacked like bricks creating an 18-meter-high vertical wall, like a connective tissue, floor to floor. This staging is flanked by oversize photo murals of patterns developed by five of Louis Vuitton’s collaborators — Richard Prince, Yayoi Kusama, Supreme, Takashi Murakami, and Stephen Sprouse. The installation, officials explained, “reflects the constant reinvention of symbolic iconographies against contemporary contexts.”
Whether on a project for a permanent or temporary store, Shigematsu said, “I don’t really consider anything permanent, and that’s in kind of a good way, because fashion brands and stores are often curated and are always being updated per season, per that moment of time.”
He suggested Vuitton’s new, temporary 57th Street store has a “semi-temporary story,” since it’s expected to be up and running for at least two or three years. The creative process has to reflect that timeline — temporary but not so temporary. “That’s a very fine balance,” Shigematsu said.
Whether creating for Louis Vuitton in Bangkok or New York, “I want to respect the core identity of the brand, which is a trunk, but also, in a way I want to destabilize that identity in a healthy way, creating some kind of surprising communication to show that the trunk is actually light and very strong. So we call it a trunkscape.”
At the Bangkok exhibit, people entered the space without much explanatory text, but as Shigematsu said, “They felt a different kind of type of communication about the strength and the lightness of the trunks.”
The LV trunk as a module can create objects or spaces, perhaps a ring, a sphere, or a tunnel, Shigematsu said. Or towers. Hopefully, visitors to Louis Vuitton on 57th Street pick up on how his exhibition inspires the interior of the store environment, and the connection between the two.
Reflecting on Louis Vuitton’s track record of innovation, Shigematsu said, “The trunk used to have an arch, a vault at the top, so you couldn’t really stack it, right? So Louis Vuitton made it flat so you can actually stack them and efficiently transport them.”
Launch Gallery: Inside Louis Vuitton's New 57th Street Flagship Store in New York City
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