The lively Taiwan Boulevard, fulcrum of the cultural district of Taichung on the west coast of Taiwan, is the location chosen by Molteni Group for its new Molteni&C flagship store, the first on the island.
Organized in partnership with YC Group, a company that brings premium brands to Taiwan with projects to simplify entry on the local market, Molteni&C faces the street with a white façade 29 meters in length.
The store has been conceived to offer a “retail experience” where everything – materials, finishes, artworks selected to personalize the spaces – contributes, together with the furniture on display, to generate a versatile, multifunctional domestic environment ready to adapt to any needs of the user. An idea of the home in constant evolution, but also intimate, reassuring and welcoming, also interpreted through partition systems, the protagonists of the project and an integral part of the architecture.
Architecture, in fact, has always been the distinctive earmark of the brand, relying on collaboration with designers like Vincent Van Duysen, creative director of the brand since 2016, Jean Nouvel, Foster + Partners, Ron Gilad, Gio Ponti, Werner Blaser, Tobia Scarpa and Ignazio Gardella, just to name a few.
The visitor experience is spectacular, not only because of the proportions of the display area, which with its 700 sqm is the largest of the brand in Asia, but also for the settings created inside, which are divided into two parts.
The first store presents several pieces that have made the history of the brand, like the famous and versatile Piroscafo bookcase, in a totally new version of contemporary charm: based on collaboration between Aldo Rossi and Luca Meda, Piroscafo seems to be paced by the regular rhythm of its windows, like a building. A historic piece in which the language of architecture has been shifted into the context of décor. This first area also features the D.154.2 chair by Gio Ponti, the designer to whom Molteni&C has devoted an entire collection, organized in 2012 in collaboration with Archivio Gio Ponti and his estate under the artistic direction of Studio Cerri & Associati.
The second store offers visitors a more tactile experience, with the Piccadilly chairs by Rodolfo Dordoni or the award-winning Surf sofa by Yabu Pushelberg, as well as other creations (by Patricia Urquiola, Ron Gilad, Dante Bonuccelli, Vincent Van Duysen and others) belonging to the inimitable stylistic narrative of the brand.
