Citizen Watch Company Flagship
CategoryRetailYear2014
LocationNew York, NY
Size1,500 sf
American Architecture Prize 2016 Honorable Mention
The Citizen Watch Company hired Mapos Architects to conceive and design its first ever retail experience. Located in the heart of New York City’s Times Square, the prime goals of the project were to showcase Citizen’s wide range of timepiece collections, explain the long history of the brand’s technological achievements, and to create a design that both differentiated Citizen from a crowded marketplace and was related to, yet evolved from, its aging wholesale outlets.
Building from Citizen’s brand palette of mostly black and highlights of white, Mapos’ first move was to reverse this hierarchy to move the brand from a dark and exclusive men’s club into a more inclusive and optimistic experience for the 21st century.
Photography by Garrett Rowland.
The highest resolution marquee in New York to date, the massive 4-sided LED marquee boldly announces the arrival of Citizen to the global retail marketplace.
Each wall section is composed of a modular system of wall panels, graphics, storage cabinets, glass display vitrines, and LCD monitors, all of which can change quickly to update brand stories.
Both the perimeter walls and storage cabinets feature the subtle use of shou-sugi-ban, a historic Japanese wood treatment that chars the surface of wood. This is a direct link to Citizen’s Japanese foundation and heritage.
A prominent cantilever on the floor fixtures lightens and modernizes the traditional watch display, and also represents Citizen’s commitment to innovation and engineering.
