Swatch Art Peace Hotel: Boutiques OpeningBrequet, Blancpain, Omega and Swatch open flagship stores
The opening of the ground floor of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel took place at 26th May 2010 in Shanghai with four exceptional boutiques in a grandiose architectural environment. The Swatch Art Peace Hotel, an emblematic historical building located at the corner of the Bund and Nanjing Road, reopened today after several years of restoration work that will enable it to welcome the public in the boutiques of four of Swatch Group’s most prestigious brands – Blancpain, Breguet, Omega and Swatch.
Under the leadership and creative guidance of the Swatch Group, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel project’s innovative operational concept blends a retail environment with a hotel where artists live and work. At the outset of the project, Swatch Group appointed Parisian agency Jouin Manku to develop a comprehensive design for the hotel interiors that assured due respect for the heritage and historical importance of the building. For the retail space opening today, Jouin Manku developed a unique environment for the Swatch boutique. Leading Swatch Group brands Breguet, Blancpain and Omega are also represented with boutiques of their own, featuring the period décor and cultural ambience of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
A grand opening of the fully restored building is planned for August 2010, when the Swatch Art Peace Hotel will begin to welcome working artists from around the world to its splendid venues. Artists from a range of creative disciplines will be selected by a committee to ensure that a broad spectrum of nationalities is represented. The chosen artists will live and work in the Swatch Art Peace Hotel’s 18 workshop apartments, may exhibit their work on the premises and will be asked leave a “trace” of their art at the hotel when they have completed their residencies. At present, the members of the Artist Selection Committee are: Nicolas G. Hayek and Georges N. Hayek, Chairman and CEO of the Swatch Group; Esther Grether, Board Member of the Swatch Group; George Clooney, actor; François-Henri Pinault, CEO of PPR; Mikhail Kusnirovich, Chairman of the Strategic Development Committee of GUM; and Sir Francis Yeoh, Chairman, YTL Group. Additional members will be appointed in due course.
The Swatch Art Peace Hotel Residence comprises 7 guest suites designed by Jouin Manku. Swatch Group has appointed Singapore-based YTL Hotels to manage the Residence and to operate the Shook! Restaurant on the Hotel premises.