Fashion house Saint Laurent presented its Spring Summer 2024 menswear collection at Mies van der Rohe‘s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which was recently overhauled by David Chipperfield Architects.
The Saint Laurent show took place on 12 June in the stone-clad exhibition hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie.
The museum, which is located in the Tiergartenviertel neighbourhood of Berlin, Germany, was designed by German-American architect Mies van der Rohe in 1968.
The set for the Saint Laurent show was extremely minimalist, with the building’s modernist interior serving as the unadorned background for the presentation.
The upper-level pavilion of the Neue Nationalgalerie, where the show took place, has a largely open-plan interior that is enveloped by a glass curtain wall set in steel frames.
“Saint Laurent unveils its new collection in a modernist masterpiece, Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, the last major project designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,” the brand said.
“With its pared-down classicism and assured embrace of its time, the glass-and-steel temple for art feels as novel now as when it first opened, in 1968,” it added.
“The iconic pavilion is a fitting setting for Anthony Vaccarello’s ongoing reimagining of essential Saint Laurent themes with an attitude and ease suited to life today.”
Heavy grey curtains were fixed to the ceiling’s network of steel beams that stretch across the interior, dividing the exhibition hall in half and zoning the show space on the western side of the building.
Additional grey curtains also flanked the north and south-facing glass walls of the exhibition space.
As a result of the grey curtain walls, the audience’s sight was directed towards the building’s sculpture garden on the lower level, which was partly obstructed by a large lightbox outside the pavilion that was used to light the interior.
Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona stools, upholstered in black leather, were organised in two rows around the perimeter of the upper floor pavilion and served as seating for Saint Laurent’s guests and as the only decoration within the space alongside the curtains.
Models emerged from an opening in the curtains, crossing the floor of the pavilion on an angular path around the interior and its marble installation walls.
The museum recently underwent an 11-year extensive overhaul and restoration that was completed by David Chipperfield Architects.
This saw the practice refurbish the building’s declining concrete structure, the steel and glass exterior and modernise its services, in what Chipperfield described as a “surgical” restoration.
Saint Laurent staged its last menswear show at the Tadao Ando renovated Bourse de Commerce during Paris Fashion Week.
Prior to that, the brand presented its Spring Summer 2023 menswear show in the Moroccan desert, which featured a glowing metal ring that emerged from a circular oasis.
The photography is by Zoe Joubert courtesy of Bureau Betak.
Project credits:
Design and production: Bureau Betak
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