Tokyo’s Fabulous Art Deco Department Store Elevator by Rene Prou
Few design styles are as widely recognized and appreciated as Art Deco. The iconic movement made an incredible mark on all fields of design and culture throughout the 1920s and ’30s. During that same period, department stores grew into grand palaces of commerce celebrating society’s growing wealth in extravagant, ornamental and luxurious designed buildings.
These department stores offered a feast for the eyes and senses. Every convenience imaginable from lounges to lunchrooms, restaurants to roof gardens were accompanied by exemplary attentive service, and cutting edge architectural tech to support that attention to service.
White glove elevator operators at Nihonbashi Takashimaya.
In previous posts, we’ve noted how retail has always been at the forefront of architectural convenience like electric lighting, air conditioning and heating, and of course elevators. Department stores, boutique shopping centres and showrooms tend to be early adopters of to ensure the best experience for visitors. Japan to this day maintains century old luxury etiquette and hospitality, just ask the white glove elevator operators at Nihonbashi Takashimaya.
Recently, luxury brands like Louis Vuitton continue to invest in lavish mechanical amenities to attract customers. A Spiralling Double Helix Elevator is a central feature in the Louis Vuitton London townhouse showroom, while in America brands like Restoration Hardware have been redeveloping historical buildings anchored around central elevator features like at their Chicago and New York retail galleries.
Today we are are going to look closer at a Japanese Art Deco Department Store that celebrates the streamlined aesthetics and industrial influences of the art decor design movement, and the ornate elevator prominently featured for almost a century.
In 1673, Mitsukoshi, a small Japanese retailer, took a new approach to marketing goods that was much different than its competition. Instead of selling by going door-to-door, Mitsukoshi set up a store where buyers could purchase goods on the spot with cash. In the years that followed, the company has grown into a merchandising giant throughout Asia and around the world adopting and adapting ideas, techniques and operation methods from successful American, English and other Western European department stores. (Rappaort, 'A New Era of Shopping', pp.30-47.)
The crown jewel of Mitsukoshi is their Parisian-Art Deco styled Department Store in Tokyo, Japan. The original flagship store located at Nihonbashi burned during the Kanto earthquake in 1923 but was quickly rebuilt using the most recent design styles and trends.
Tokyo’s Fabulous Art Deco Department Stores. Originally Posted on February 7, 2016 by Randy Juster
For this new incarnation of the store, Mitsukoshi staff went to Paris to interview various artists before choosing the legendary Art-Deco decorator Rene Prou.
Prou, who had designed 60 private residences and 30 banks between 1918 and 1930, would go on to design over 500 train compartments — the most prestigious of which was for the Orient Express — and participated in the interior design of nine luxury ocean liners, including the Paris, the Île-de-France and the legendary Normandie.
Tokyo’s Fabulous Art Deco Department Stores. Originally Posted on February 7, 2016 by Randy Juster
Prou’s design for the Japanese behemoth would be no less impressive than his work back in Paris. Reopening in 1925, the luxurious department store featured spectacular Art Deco metalwork on both the exterior and interior.
Prou applies the highest quality craftsmanship from the highly ornamental main doors, soaring interior columns, and elaborate railings throughout, to custom lighting features and fixtures, and of course the custom designed elevator enclosures.
Tokyo’s Fabulous Art Deco Department Stores. Originally Posted on February 7, 2016 by Randy Juster
Complete with bespoke floor indicators, hammered stainless and aluminum mouldings, and marble transom above, the celebration of the relatively new elevator room competes with any of the era you’d find in Europe or the Americas. When many of the structures in Tokyo barely rose a few stories above ground, these elevators would have provided a unique experience for gusts visiting Mitsukoshi at the time.
A constant round of exhibitions provided further entertainment and education, such as an exhibition of foreign customs held at the department store in 1927. The exhibition introduced the Japanese to exotic foreign places, people and their social lives.
In 1910, The Mitsukoshi Department Store hired the capable artist Sugiura Hisui to be chief art advertising designer. This 1914 poster by Hisui shows both the influence of a dying Art Nouveau, but a striking foreshadowing of the Art Deco period to come.
As a place, Japanese department stores of the 1920s and 1930s generated new ways of viewing and experiencing shopping. Even if you didn’t like shopping, it became a worthwhile visit for the architecture and interior decoration alone.
As Roy Starrs notes in his book Rethinking Japanese Modernism. The interiors of department stores evolved into luxurious and light-filled spaces, with wide aisles, high ceilings, geometric Art Deco decorative patterns, mirrors, and coloured stained glass. Equipped with the latest technology, department stores of course had electric lighting and also elevators and telephones available for customers' use. They were one of the earliest to have heating in their buildings.[2]
Tokyo’s Fabulous Art Deco Department Stores. Originally Posted on February 7, 2016 by Randy Juster
Sources:
1) Erika Diane Rappaort, 'A New Era of Shopping', pp.30-47.
2) Roy Starrs, ‘Rethinking Japanese Modernism’, pp436-439.
3) Story includes excerpts from Decopix.com
https://www.decopix.com/japan-deco-tokyos-fabulous-art-deco-department-stores/