Xintiandi, Shanghai's most distinctive district
Xintiandi holds a special place in Shanghai's urban landscape. The district, in Huangpu, is home to the traditional houses known as shikumen, early 20th-century buildings with grey stone and red brick façades. Their rehabilitation, carried out from the 2000s, has turned them into settings for high-end boutiques, restaurants and cultural venues.
It is here that Lady M, the famous New York pastry house founded in 2001, chose to open its Chinese flagship. An address that had to engage with the local architectural heritage while asserting the sophisticated identity of the brand, famous for its mille crêpes.
An Art Deco inspiration in a traditional shell
The fit-out of the flagship was entrusted to Wee Chen, founder and executive director of the studio SLT Design Consulting Firm. The approach translates into an Art Deco reading of the Lady M identity: a palette of nuanced whites, fine materials, clean lines. A modern vocabulary that acts as a delicate counterpoint to the mineral robustness of the shikumen.
The outdoor terrace becomes the hinge between the historic building and the brand's contemporary spirit. It welcomes passers-by, draws the eye, and sets the tone before you even step through the door.
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The Africa chair, an Eugeni Quitllet signature
For this terrace, Vondom proposed the Africa chair, designed by Eugeni Quitllet. The piece is emblematic of the Catalan designer's vocabulary; he likes to talk about "revealed silhouettes": forms that seem to pre-exist in the material, as if waiting to be uncovered.
The Africa chair plays with a taut balance between fullness and emptiness. Its openwork backrest draws silhouettes reminiscent of nature, the ergonomics are intuitive and the overall shape remains extremely economical in material. This is exactly what appeals in the context of Lady M: a seat that fades visually when the shikumen façade and the brand's signage need to remain the protagonists.
White as a choice of continuity
All the chairs were specified in a white finish. This choice of colour is no accident. It ensures visual consistency between the interior of the patisserie, which uses several shades of white, and the mineral outdoor surroundings. The furniture then becomes a natural extension of the brand, with no visual break between inside and outside.
The rotomoulded polyethylene used by Vondom in Beneixída offers an outdoor lifespan that justifies this choice. The white does not yellow or flake, even in Shanghai's humid climate. A decisive criterion for a venue that builds much of its visual identity on this shade.
When minimalism engages with heritage
The Lady M Shanghai project illustrates an approach we often defend at Verano Design. Placing a contemporary project within a historic building is not a matter of reproducing the codes of the past; it can instead rely on a deliberate but controlled contrast.
The shikumen remains legible, with its heavy textures and cultural roots. The Africa chair by Eugeni Quitllet, with its openwork silhouette and its whiteness, acts as a bridge between these two time periods. The result is neither nostalgic nor uprooted: it offers an encounter on the pavement side that makes you want to go in.
