Brand (New) Showrooms Bolon London A top representative of design for floors is Bolon, a brand whose latest London outlet can be found in Clerkenwell, a central London area popular among younger architects and designers. The store has also proved an excellent showcase for Bolon by Missoni, the firm’s exciting collaborative collection with one of Italy’s smartest fashion houses. Words Alexandra Onderwater Cassina London Designer Piero Lissoni envisioned Cassina’s first-ever London showroom as a meeting place and must-visit destination. Set in a listed building in the historical heart of the Brompton Design District, the showroom embodies the industrial soul of the Italian brand in an interior soothed by the deep grey tones of the London skyline. cassina.com bolon.com Update Cofrad’s new three-storey showroom – in the central Parisian neighbourhood of Les Halles, once home to a huge wholesale marketplace – started life as a butcher’s shop. Countless Cofrad mannequins share the space with the brand’s latest collections of wood and metal display materials and accessories. Sicis Paris Conceived as a jewellery box, the new Sicis showroom in the City of Lights is the place to be for fine jewellery and watch collections: designs based on the mosaic traditions of the company’s home in Ravenna. Other merchandise includes furniture and tile pieces for interior and exterior decoration. cofrad.fr Redesign, relocate, run the risk: these nine design companies opened brandnew showrooms that are worth a look. It’s show time! sicis.com ALU New York City According to Italian display-systems company ALU – explaining the recent relocation of its showroom from Chelsea to SoHo – the urban landscape of street signs, water towers and fire escapes that characterizes this vibrant area of the Big Apple is a sure trigger for new ideas and fresh approaches to the arrangement of eyecatching retail environments. Kvadrat Paris 160 kvadrat.dk Boffi Design Post Montreal Amsterdam Reflecting the French roots of its location, Teknion’s redesigned Montreal showroom features aluminiumpanelled walls stencil-cut with a high-tech pattern of dots – a 21st-century take on a traditional motif used in the fabrication of French brocade. Boffi – an Italian maestro of kitchens, bathrooms and, since 2010, storage systems – has opened its first mono-brand showroom in Canada. A former warehouse near Montreal’s Little Italy neighbourhood (where else?) is now home to Boffi Studio Montreal, where the design-savvy customer can sit down with an in-house interior designer for a customized solution. teknion.com boffi.com It’s not the easiest place to find, but just when you start wondering whether you’ve reached the end of the world you come face to face with Design Post Amsterdam, a spacious showroom filled to the brim with inspiration and brand names: look for Dutch collections from Palau, Montis, Eikelenboom and Arco – as well as gotta-have products by Flos and Moroso. Teknion designpostamsterdam.nl 161 Three new showrooms are testimony to Kvadrat’s expanding sales network. In Oslo, Norwegian architects Space Group transformed an old industrial building into a serene haven that oozes Scandinavian simplicity, while in Zürich Moritz Schmid used Kvadrat’s celebrated fabrics to make quilted walls. For the opening of Kvadrat’s Paris showroom, Swedish artist Miriam Bäckström created an interactive installation (see page 18). Located at the heart of the Marais district, the venue merges sales offices and exhibition space. alu.it Montreal Update Update Cofrad Paris