OMA has been named the winner of the competition to design the new KaDeWe department store in the Museumsquartier section of Vienna. The firm’s first outpost in the Austrian capital will be compromised of a retail space and a hotel.
Renderings of the project depict a façade inspired by the sophisticated geometries of architecture during the Vienna Secession, accompanied by public gardens stretching across the rooftops with a diverse layout of spaces such as tree governs and sundecks.
“The value of department stores should be measured by their ability to engage the local context,” OMA partners Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli and Ellen van Loon said in a statement. “We see these buildings not as icons, but rather architectural devices that establish new urban connections and public spaces through their own internal organizations. We aim the new KaDeWe store to do just the same.”
