The “Ottica Annoni”, glasses and optometry historical shop, decides to move, after more than 100 years, in a larger and brighter space on the ground floor of a nearby building of the Monza’s city center. The new shop has an "L" shape, where, in the widest part facing the public road, takes place the sales activities, while in the deepest part there are office, warehouse and service areas. 

The design’s process challenge was to expose at least 500 glasses giving however to the customer the feel to be in a boutique and not in a department store. The store’s concept turns around the vertical blades that run from the floor, on the walls, to the ceiling expanding the perception of the space and becoming an elegant "structure" for showing glasses on light and backlit Plexiglas shelves. The final customer perception is not a confusing display of numerous articles, but a feeling of linearity and refinement in showing each pair of glasses. 

The sales counters have been studied not only as shelves or as displays but also to stocks
a great amount of glasses. Service and public areas are separated by a cabinet/boiserie with closed and open exhibitors, accessible at times by selling area at times by private ones; in the boiserie it is also hidden the access doors to private spaces. The used materials are wood and glass in white and brown colors; we played a lot with textures: smooth and rough, shiny and matte, lacquered and laminated. 


Location: Monza
Photographer: Giacomo Albo - Finearc
Architects: A3 Architetti Andrea Olivotto - Annalisa Masoni