DESIGN: Bulgari Shanghai’s jade façade is made from recycled champagne bottles

Shanghai Plaza 66 – one of the largest and most popular shopping malls in Shanghai – is now the home of a new Bulgari flagship store at Shanghai’s Nanjing Road. The new store features a green, jade-like façade designed by MVRDV, made from brass and recycled champagne, beer, and other glass bottles.

Like the previous designs, the Shanghai project makes use of a visual motif inspired by the portals and cornices of Bulgari’s first original boutique on Rome’s Via dei Condotti.  However, in a twist on the previous designs, this motif is not used to form windows in the façade. Instead, the Shanghai façade is mostly windowless, and the cornice motif is employed in layered panels that form an Art-Deco-inspired pattern. Art Deco is a theme that Shanghai and Bulgari have in common: the Chinese city’s status as a key port connecting East and West in the early 20th century gave it a rich tradition in this architectural style, while Bulgari’s Déco collection characterized its jewelry in the same period.

To close this circle of inspiration, the façade takes on the materiality of fine jewelry with panels that resemble China’s most precious stone, Jade. The result is a complex design, with layer upon layer of cross-cultural references; Art Deco architecture with a jewelry-like quality, combining the best of Eastern and Western culture. The gold-colored brass trim gives the façade an appearance like jade jewelry.

The panels are made of sintered green glass, a unique material effect that creates a translucent finish. At night, a backlight behind the panels gives the façade a striking glow, highlighting the unique textural quality of the glass. The glass is completely recycled, produced at the Magna factory in Teutschenthal, Germany, which specializes in glass treatment. The project demonstrates the potential of sustainable recycled materials, even in luxury contexts, and takes one step towards MVRDV and Bulgari’s goal of store designs that are built using 100% circular economy materials. Meanwhile the backlight is engineered to minimize the façade’s energy footprint, using less than half the energy of a typical comparable installation.