In its refurbishment of a luxury shoe shop in Antwerp, Glenn Sestig Architects has allowed the architecture to shine. The firm has managed to prioritise the customer’s needs without succumbing to an overly emotional approach to the shopping experience.

In 1966, the young architect Hans Hollein refurbished a shop with a floor area of barely 13 m² and a façade width of no more than 4 metres in the centre of Vienna. Could he have imagined back then that this project would one day become part of the city’s architectural heritage? With its postmodern features and futuristic associations, the candle shop – with its striking façade and meticulously designed interior – became iconic within Hollein’s body of work. Set against the historic backdrop of Vienna’s main shopping street, the shop immediately catches the eye. It may not have actually contributed to a different way of shopping, but the answer to the question of how much architecture a retail outlet can accommodate is no longer the same after Hollein’s intervention as it was before.