Between real and virtual: Roca Gallery Beijing by MAD Architects

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Action Media

Between real and virtual: Roca Gallery Beijing by MAD Architects

The combination of physical and virtual is the distinctive mark of the design MAD Architects developed for the Roca Gallery flagship store at Dongzhimen, near the East Second Ring Road in Beijing, China.

The exhibition spaces located on the two levels of the showroom overlook the urban environment through double-height windows.
MAD made the most of such openness of the building facade, converting the back walls of the Roca Gallery into giant LED screens and transforming the showroom into a sort of theatrical stage exposed to the people walking along the street.
Indeed, the “virtual characters” moving on the led-wall – unaware of the public looking at them – utilize and, in a certain sense, “perform” exactly the same objects that are on display in the showroom, thus playfully connecting the interior of the Roca Beijing Gallery and the outer world, in a somewhat estranging yet jolly interplay between inside and outside.

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store.

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Action Media

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Action Media

The video installation, created by art critic and curator Jérôme Sans, also presents views of natural environments that simulate different weather conditions and the changing of the seasons.
“I hope that the Roca Beijing Gallery can become a positive, vivid corner of the urban community, connecting people and city in the simplest way,” Ma Yansong, MAD Architect’s founding principal, says.

In designing the sixth Roca Gallery in the world, MAD joined a group of acclaimed architects who created stores for Roca in the past, such as Zaha Hadid, who designed the Roca Gallery in London in 2011.

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Shu He

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Shu He

MAD Architects, Roca Gallery flagship store, photo by Shu He