MVRDV’s Crystal Houses, re-opens with an even more transparent façade

MVRDV redesigned Crystal Houses, housing a new Hermès luxury store, replacing the temporary store of Chanel. This facade, even more transparent than the one made in 2016, combines the complexity of traditional brick construction with the transparency of a commercial façade.

New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV. Photograph by Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee.

The new facade of MVRDV opens to the outside, eliminating the blind wall that had originally, allowing visitors to see the union of glass bricks with terracotta bricks. In this way, a transparency is created in the façade that decreases in an upward direction.

Description of project by MVRDV

Crystal Houses, the Amsterdam store designed by MVRDV that received international acclaim upon its opening in 2016, has re-opened with a new tenant and a façade which is finally as open as originally intended. The project’s jewel-like façade was proposed as a way for Amsterdam to be home to distinctive, upmarket flagship stores without compromising the city’s historical character. Located on the high-end shopping street PC Hooftstraat, Crystal Houses initially hosted a temporary store for Chanel, but it has now been renovated and re-opened for French luxury brand Hermès.

Created for Amsterdam-based retail real-estate company Warenar, Crystal Houses was envisioned as a recreation of the traditional houses that make up PC Hooftstraat, with a dramatic twist: the usual brick façade is replaced by a glass replica, which dissolves into the traditional terracotta bricks on the upper level.

The effect required a period of intense research undertaken with the collaboration of TU Delft, engineers ABT, and contractor Wessels Zeist, and with materials provided by glass manufacturer Poesia and Delo Industrial Adhesives. The outcome was a dreamlike shopfront which combines the intricate complexity of traditional brick construction with the transparency of a retail façade.

However, due to the spatial requirements of the temporary Chanel store, the impact of this transparency was previously diminished by a blind wall on the first floor, behind the upper portion of the glass façade. In the new Hermès store, interior designers Bureau de Binnenstad removed this wall and opened the floor to the exterior, for the first time allowing visitors to see the dissolving effect where the glass bricks meet terracotta bricks close up, and finally taking full advantage of the transparency of the innovative design.

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Old facade with the Chanel store, Crystal Houses by MVRDV. Photograph by Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee.

Basement and Ground floor plan. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV.

Mezzanine and first floor plan. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV.

Sections. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV.

Elevation. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV.

Diagram. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV.

In constrution. New façade of Crystal Houses by MVRDV. Photograph by Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee.

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More information

Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV

MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.

MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.

Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.