A new Tiffany & Co. flagship store has opened in Beijing’s Taikoo Li Sanlitun district, distinguished by a façade designed by MVRDV that turns the building into a refined architectural jewel.
Located at a prominent crossroads in the northern section of the retail quarter, the four-storey store introduces a light, fluid presence into a context dominated by luxury brands, asserting its identity through form, material, and atmosphere rather than signage alone.
The Beijing project marks the fifth façade designed by MVRDV for Tiffany & Co., continuing a series that explores innovative materials and expressive three-dimensional surfaces as architectural counterparts to the brand’s jewellery craftsmanship.
Architecture Inspired by Jewellery
The façade is composed of vertical, translucent glass fins that rise the full height of the building, wrapping it in a soft, sculptural envelope.
Their gently curved profiles are directly inspired by the iconic Bone Cuff designed by Elsa Peretti®, translating the sensual geometry of jewellery into an architectural scale.
Responsibly recycled and locally manufactured, the fins introduce depth and rhythm to the façade, creating a surface that appears solid from afar yet porous at close range. As visitors move around the building, the façade shifts continuously, revealing subtle views into the interior and glimpses of the jewellery beyond the glass.
Light as a Design Material
Light plays a central role in shaping the façade’s character.
Seen from an angle, the dense layering of glass fins amplifies reflections and refractions, enhancing the building’s fluid geometry.
As Jacob van Rijs, founding partner at MVRDV, explains: “When viewed from an angle, the layering effect of the dense glass fins amplifies the effects of the light, highlighting the façade’s shape. The light filtering through and reflecting off of the translucent glass creates a delicate interplay that is constantly changing as you move. And, as you pass close to the building, you see glimpses in between the fins to the jewellery inside.”
At night, the façade takes on a new identity. The glass — carefully selected for its natural blue tone — is illuminated in Tiffany & Co.’s iconic Tiffany Blue®, giving the building a soft, diffuse glow that animates the street without overpowering it.
Lighting modules are discreetly integrated into custom-designed brackets, ensuring that technical elements remain invisible and the focus stays on the subtle play of light across the glass surface.
A Demountable and Responsible Façade
Beyond its visual refinement, the façade is conceived with circularity and sustainability in mind.
The entire system is demountable, allowing the glass fins and mounting brackets to be removed without damage. This approach enables the components to be reused or recycled at the end of their lifespan — an increasingly important consideration for high-end retail architecture.
In this way, the façade balances permanence and adaptability, luxury and responsibility.
Architecture as Brand Expression
With its flowing geometry, luminous materiality, and carefully choreographed interaction with light, the Tiffany & Co. Beijing façade demonstrates how architecture can operate as brand expression without literal representation.
MVRDV’s design captures the essence of jewellery — precision, craft, sensuality, and lightness — and translates it into a spatial experience embedded in the urban fabric of Beijing.
Rather than acting as a static storefront, the façade becomes an animated surface, a building that changes with time of day, viewpoint, and movement — a piece of architecture that, like jewellery itself, reveals its richness through detail and proximity.
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Images © Tiffany & Co.
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