Interior design: Lissoni&Partners
Photo credits: Tommaso Sartori
The story shaping the identity and heritage of Audemars Piguet, an ultra-luxury Swiss watchmaker, starts in Milan. To be exact: from Via Bagutta 2, where the new AP House space now covers the fifth to ninth floors of a historical rationalist building, the erstwhile Garage Traversi. The architect Piero Lissoni designed its interiors, using a cross-disciplinary interpretive lens, paying tribute to 20th-century Milanese architectural culture as well as design from the 1960s and 1970s.
To convey the savoir-faire passed down in the company since 1875, Lissoni took inspiration from the natural landscape of the Vallée de Joux, in the heart of the Jura Massif, north of Geneva, the cradle of the brand and its current headquarters. A grandiose, sculptural black steel staircase is enclosed by a twisting wall in backlit onyx, connecting the levels vertically as if in a dance, referencing the building’s circular layout.
The five floors encompass both classic offices and traditional sales spaces, as well as a lounge area where guests can relax in an easy atmosphere. Another area features immersive virtual reality that takes visitors into a pristine forest of the Vallée de Joux, a world that has long inspired the development of time-telling devices. It touches on the region’s resources, such as the rocks from which the ferrous material is extracted that powered the development and success of the watch industry.
There is also a floor where visitors can admire Audemars Piguet’s watchmakers at work on their pieces, an exhibition floor with contemporary and historical timepieces, and a rooftop with a bar. The display cases and windows were custom-designed with meticulous care. The attention to detail and use of fine materials aimed for an overall effect that highlights the excellence of these fine timepieces, rather than dominating the scene.
Lissoni chose to make use of the square module pattern of the dial of the brand’s watches, conveyed in varying formats, such as in the entrance’s lighted canopy, on the onyx wall around the staircase, on the ceilings and surfaces customizing the display systems.
