Dezeen Magazine

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

Oskar Kohnen Studio adds pastel cabinetry to Lunettes Selection store

Customers can peek inside cabinet drawers to see the glasses on offer inside this mint-green eyewear store in Berlin, which has been designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio.

Located just a short walk from major Berlin shopping street Kurfürstendamm, Lunettes Selection's pastel interiors are dressed with a handful of decor pieces that subtly nod to the past.

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

"Lunettes Selection Charlottenburg functions as an essay on vintage West Berlin retail spaces through a contemporary lens, and draws extensively on the local area’s heritage and history," explained Oskar Kohnen, whose eponymous studio designed the store.

This is the eyewear brand's third retail space in the German capital, joining branches in the city's Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhoods.

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

The two-level store, which was formerly a fast-food restaurant, has been completely stripped back to feature a floor-to-ceiling mint-green cabinet, assembled out of disused tool cupboards from the 1960s.

Different glasses models are presented inside each of the unit's 375 pull-out drawers instead of on typical display plinths, a move the brand hopes will "invite discovery" amongst customers.

"The large-scale, modular repeat of the drawers along with the unifying colour give it a sculptural quality, punctuating the store's white cube of a front room," explained Kohen.

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

Unattractive vinyl flooring from the store's previous fit-out has also been ripped up to reveal pale grey slabs of marble that were originally laid in the 1970s.

"[The floor's] muted complexity also works in harmony with the reduced architectural look of the space," added Kohen.

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

Two metal-frame chairs with sloping brown-leather seats have been used to dress the rest of the ground floor, along with a 1980s table by Dutch designer Hank Kwint which has a mottled-glass surface counter.

Above hangs a contemporary lighting fixture comprised of glass tubes that are bunched together by steel rings.

A doorway then leads through to an optometry room centred by a pistachio-coloured chair, where customers can get their eyesight examined. More glasses can be found down at the store's basement level, accessed via a staircase with a mint-green balustrade.

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio

Other striking glasses shops include London's Ace & Tate, which features a "voyeuristic" pair of neon eyes that stare out at customers and Seattle's Eye Eye, which is centred by a bright-blue enclosure that's shaped like a house.

Photography is by Jacques Nguyen.

More images and plans

Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio
Floor plan
Lunettes Selection shop in Berlin designed by Oskar Kohnen Studio
Axonometric drawing