Flagshipstore Peek & Cloppenburg

Double-curved shell structure

Client:

Peek & Cloppenburg KG Düsseldorf - D

Architect:

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Paris

Country:

Germany

City:

Cologne

Completion:

2005

Caption:

Michel Denancé

The architect Renzo Piano designed a glazed dome for the textile company „Peek & Cloppenburg“. It features a skin consisting of 6,800 individual overlapping glass panes.
The five-storey department store in the inner-city Cologne is entirely wrapped into the free-formed facade shell. The vertically arranged trusses of wood slats and the horizontally running facade tubes are linked to the shell structure by diagonally stretching cables. The number of wood slats are graded from floor to floor according to the strain. The trusses of wood slats made of Siberian larch were completely prefabricated. Supporting the shell structure on just a few rigid positions of the carcass enables an almost complete isolation from distortion forces. On the forth floor the façade shell is attached by consoles. In order to maintain the impressive effect of the facade also inside, the ceilings do not touch the glass skin.