Peek & Cloppenberg Department Store

The German department store chain Peek & Cloppenburg commissioned a new store for the historic center of Leipzig, to be the first newly-built department store in the former East Germany since reunification. The challenges of the site included the need to tie the new building into the network of passages which are a distinctive feature of Leipzig, and for the façade to mediate between narrow medieval street widths and wider post-war setbacks.

Our competition-winning design paid careful attention to the existing architectural tradition of Leipzig, such as bay windows, arcades, and the use of such fine materials as copper and stone. The complex geometries of the site were resolved in multilayered façades, which allow the opportunity for street level arcades and the careful sculpting of the building mass. Marking the corner, a glass tower provides a fresh interpretation of the exuberant tradition of commercial buildings in Germany.

The building includes 17,500 square meters on seven floors— three floors of retail sales, and four floors of offices, with the flexibility to convert one office floor into a sales floor in the future.

Associate Architect: Architekten RKW