KaDeWe Berlin: with OMA to the department store of the future?

KaDeWe is in a state of upheaval. AD spoke with Ellen van Loon, partner at the architectural firm OMA, about a conversion during ongoing operations.

The legendary "Kaufhaus des Westens" at the top end of Berlin's Ku'damm probably stands for one thing above all: the bygone grandeur of sophisticated inner-city luxury shopping. In times of fast online ordering, dust seems to have settled on the old building - dust is indeed lying over some of the areas inside, where work is currently being diligently carried out on the department store of the future. That's because Rem Koolhaas' Dutch architectural firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has been working for five years on a comprehensive master plan that will include the redesign of all interior spaces and storefronts.

The KaDeWe Berlin under reconstruction

True, the full implementation of this plan will take years, as it will take place during ongoing operations. But last week, the first new escalator was already ceremoniously inaugurated with a fashion show. The day after, a somewhat exhausted Ellen van Loon sits in the far corner of the sixth floor of KaDeWe. She has been a leading partner at OMA since 2002 and has been involved in a good dozen of the office's groundbreaking projects. Now she is also in charge of the KaDeWe conversion. Now, the combination of OMA and Kadewe is particularly susceptible to all kinds of insipid word jokes; but in fact, it is precisely from this pairing that an idea for the department store of the future could emerge.

"The Spiral" is the first of four sculptural escalator installations.

Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA

AD: Ms. van Loon, the brief for this project was to reclaim the identity of KaDeWe. How do you go about doing that?

Ellen van Loon: There are two main aspects to this. One is the opening of the building itself to the city. If you look at the building from the outside, you see a number of windows, balconies and terraces that have almost all been closed since the 1970s. The concepts of shopping have turned department stores around the world into closed boxes. They are interior worlds without reference to the outside, and especially without air and daylight, and thus with a very low quality of stay. Just like in an airport. We want to reverse this process and open up the building again, also with a new two-story rooftop where there will be large windows, balconies and terraces to sit and eat outside.

The second aspect is the internal presence of KaDeWe itself. In the past, it was clear that all the products here were presented and sold by KaDeWe itself. Today, KaDeWe is an empty shell in which all sales areas are rented to the brands. These organize their presentations and the sale of their products themselves. This is where the impression of a very crowded, confusing building comes from: everything is rented out and vies for the maximum attention of the customers. We suggest creating more structure and overview here again. Then there would also be room for KaDeWe itself to make a stronger appearance again, with its own areas, its own products and various events like this fashion show yesterday. We suggest that KaDeWe should once again take on a role as an active host, being visible and present in its own house, but still leaving room for guests to have their own conversations.

What does the new spatial structure look like?

We're dividing the department store into four roughly equal quadrants. Each will have a central atrium with an escalator system. These quadrants should be very different from each other to improve orientation, and the escalators should be special markers in them. At the moment, all the escalators look the same, and there are hardly any landmarks in the building; basically, you're constantly running the risk of getting lost. These ideas are now taking shape as the first escalator, "The Spiral," has opened and the retail areas around this atrium have been redesigned on all six floors. In the transitions to the old sales areas, the difference between the new and old KaDeWe is very visible at the moment.

Why is the conversion taking so long?

Mainly because the department store has to be remodeled during ongoing operations. So we have to constantly move tenants in each area before remodeling can take place. It's like a very complex, three-dimensional puzzle and requires an extreme amount of negotiation with the tenants. By the way, the same is true for our design proposals: We have limited power. Especially the big, well-known brands often have their own ideas. If we say it would be important to keep an axis free here, then a brand will surely come and say, this is exactly where we could put ourselves, that would increase our visibility.

Ellen van Loon has been a leading partner at OMA since 2002 - and was in charge of the KaDeWe conversion.

Frans Strous / OMA

That requires a high degree of flexibility from planners and plans.

Absolutely. As architects, we have to remain flexible and patient, and at the same time not lose sight of the overall goals in the individual negotiations. It's a bit like urban planning: we propose paths, streets and squares with certain qualities, and in between are the areas where users can implement their own ideas. At the same time, the elements we insert must be strong enough to form the identity of the building and not get lost in all the heterogeneity. This will be mainly the escalators.

You are proposing very sculptural escalator installations that have appropriate titles: the one that has just opened is called "The Spiral," the next one will be called "The Twist," and then there will be "The Cascade" and "The Technical."

At OMA, we have been obsessively involved with pathways through our buildings for a very long time. Stairs and escalators always play a special role in this. They are places of seeing and being seen, especially in department stores, when customers are "raised" from horizontal movement into the diagonal. When those flowing up and those flowing down meet in these diagonals, it is already a small magical moment. Instead of organizing this moment in a purely technical way, as is done in most department stores, we propose to celebrate and enjoy it.

Is it very tiring when the implementation of the ideas takes so long?

On the contrary. We actually really enjoy the detailed discussions with everyone involved. They are almost always very constructive about the future of the department store, which includes many extremely exciting questions: How can we create event spaces, can there be pop-up stores for young Berlin designers, what kind of events are desirable, how can the growing sector of e-commerce be integrated into the world of these venerable old temples of consumption - KaDeWe opened in 1907! - be integrated in a meaningful way? These are all questions that also concern us as architects, and to some extent we don't have any ready-made answers. The fashion show on the escalator yesterday evening is also a result of all these discussions - and hopefully a first foretaste of the ideas that can still be developed in this building. As long as the talks are this constructive, the project is very welcome to continue, and we will keep developing the master plan together with everyone involved. When we have reached the end, we will start again at the beginning - and for all eternity (laughs).

The clash of the escalators flowing up and down is what Ellen van Loon calls a "magic moment."