Andersson Bell’s Flagship Tokyo Store Makes a Case for Beauty in Contrast

Words by Yatzer

22 September 2026

Andersson Bell’s Flagship Tokyo Store Makes a Case for Beauty in Contrast

Words by Yatzer

22 September 2026

Tokyo, Japan

Located in Tokyo’s upscale Aoyama district, Seoul-based fashion brand Andersson Bell’s first Japanese flagship takes over a 1990s Brutalist building, turning the existing concrete shell into an immersive study in contrast. Designed by Tokyo-based studio I IN, the store is an apt architectural expression of a brand founded on the collision of different references: creative director Dohun Kim launched Andersson Bell in Seoul in 2014 by filtering Scandinavian influences through a Korean perspective, and has since broadened that premise into a wider cross-cultural vocabulary. Rather than softening the building’s roughness, I IN amplifies it, setting curvaceous forms, vivid colour and glossy surfaces against concrete marked by age and previous use.

At dusk, ANDERSSON BELL Tokyo presents a restrained concrete façade punctuated by a glowing red sign and a large glazed opening. The vivid red portal of the ground floor is clearly visible from outside, while the glazed upper level reveals the preserved concrete structure above, turning the building into a layered urban display.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

A vivid red portal frames the ground-floor interior like an oversized display window, focusing attention on the store’s central fixtures and long axial view. Transparent tables, cylindrical plinths and glossy black surfaces sit within the saturated enclosure, while rough concrete beyond heightens the contrast between raw architecture and polished retail design. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Unfolding across three levels, the store announces itself through a large glazed façade that exposes both the ground floor and the level below to passers-by, with the former dramatically framed by a vivid red portal-like threshold. Inside, the colour continues across carpet-like microcement flooring that extends deep into the ground level, set against the building’s exposed structure, where visible drill holes, stains and construction marks give the interior a deliberately unfinished character.

At the centre, a display counter composed of stacked, kidney-shaped volumes in glossy black and orange lacquer introduces softer geometries into the rectilinear space, as does the chrome pipework tracing the perimeter, bending around corners and doubling as lighting elements and clothing rails. Mirrored surfaces further sharpen the contrast between the existing shell and I IN’s more precise interventions, while openings through the floor create long sightlines between levels, establishing the store as a vertically continuous interior rather than three discrete floors.

Seen from the street, the red-framed ground floor hovers above the basement, with both levels exposed through the glazed façade. Illuminated stairs descend through the concrete shell, creating a dramatic vertical axis of orange light, while black railings and transparent surfaces emphasise the store’s layered, interconnected spatial structure. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

The ground floor juxtaposes exposed, heavily marked concrete with a vivid red-orange floor and sculptural display furniture. Glossy black bands wrap cylindrical orange and frosted bases, while polished chrome rails trace the walls overhead. A raw concrete staircase rises beside the composition, reinforcing the space’s industrial character. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

A sculptural junction in the chrome pipework folds and intersects against raw concrete, its highly reflective surface picking up flashes of red from the store. Below, a slender clothing rail is anchored by an angled polished support, turning functional retail infrastructure into a precise graphic composition.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Glossy black surfaces loop around cylindrical orange plinths in a close-up of the ground-floor display counter. Reflections distort the forms and intensify the saturated red-orange palette, while a raw concrete column and rope-wrapped vertical element underscore I IN’s recurring contrast between polished intervention and unfinished structure.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Black metal rails form a series of large rectangular frames across the basement, setting sparse garments against unfinished concrete walls. Below, the reflective glass floor captures warm red illumination from beneath, while the linear ceiling treatment above creates a striking dialogue between repetition, transparency and the building’s rough Brutalist fabric. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Red also animates the basement, but here it shifts from surface treatment to illumination. An expansive glass floor glowing from below transforms the central circulation route into a catwalk-like spine, flanked by dark metal railings that emphasise its linearity. Overhead, a sequence of slender illuminated barrel vaults introduces a strong horizontal rhythm, further reinforcing the sense of procession. Crucially, the basement’s red glow remains visible from the floors above, turning colour into a device for visually binding the different levels together.

A close view of the basement’s illuminated glass floor reveals layers of orange and red light beneath translucent panels marked by subtle surface textures. Dark structural framing introduces a strict grid, transforming the circulation surface into a luminous architectural element rather than a conventional retail floor. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

The basement is organised around a dramatic illuminated glass floor, glowing in deep red-orange beneath dark structural frames and display platforms. Above, closely spaced white ceiling elements establish a strong rhythm, while exposed concrete walls and sparse garment displays keep the composition austere, industrial and highly graphic. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

The basement adopts a darker, more linear character, with garments displayed against bare concrete walls beneath a rhythmic ceiling of illuminated white slats. Black metal frames and reflective glazing border the central void, through which the red-lit floor below glows upward, lending the industrial space a theatrical edge.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Clothing hangs directly against the exposed concrete shell, suspended from slender chrome rails beneath a polished metal tube that stretches along the wall. Orange-red flooring adds warmth at ground level, while mirrored panels duplicate the garments and architecture, giving the compact vignette greater depth and visual ambiguity.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

The ground floor combines an expansive red-orange surface with a sculptural display counter of glossy black and cylindrical forms. Exposed concrete walls and ceiling remain visibly patched and stained, while chrome rails, transparent elements and the adjacent raw staircase introduce a sharper, more precise layer into the Brutalist shell. — Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

A quieter transitional area combines unfinished concrete stairs and slabs with a large expanse of smooth metallic wall cladding. A perforated metal screen conceals services beside the staircase, while a small flight of vivid orange steps appears above, injecting colour into the otherwise muted industrial palette.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Multiple levels overlap in this view through the store, where a large brushed-metal cylindrical volume cuts horizontally across the exposed concrete structure. A small flight of orange steps punctuates the composition, while the red-framed ground floor remains visible below, emphasising the project’s vertical continuity and contrasting material palette.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

A sectional view through ANDERSSON BELL Tokyo reveals the store’s layered circulation, with rough concrete slabs framing glimpses of the yellow upper floor and red ground level below. A visitor occupies the intermediate platform, while chrome rails, black balustrades and sculptural displays reinforce I IN’s interplay of openness, colour and industrial structure.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

A raw concrete stair rises towards the yellow upper level, punctuated by a narrow strip of orange steps that reads almost like a freestanding object. Above, a large ceiling opening offers glimpses of the floor beyond, reinforcing the store’s deliberately porous, vertically interconnected composition.

Photography by Tomooki Kengaku.

Upstairs, canary yellow replaces red, bringing a brighter, almost graphic quality to the top floor. It appears most prominently in the carpet-like microcement finish, which spreads across the floor before curling upwards to form low counters, stepped platforms and bench-like display surfaces along the windows. As on the ground floor, chrome rails round the perimeter, while a sculptural central display composed of stacked, rounded forms softens the concrete shell. Large windows and openings through the floor and ceiling draw daylight deep into the space, giving this level a noticeably lighter, more open atmosphere.

Despite the strong shifts in colour, the three levels are held together by a consistent vocabulary of exposed concrete, reflective metal, minimal detailing and carefully staged views. The designers describe the project through oppositions: “rawness and sheen, ruggedness and glamour”, a logic closely aligned with Andersson Bell’s own fascination with combining seemingly incompatible cultural and stylistic references. They also frame the store as an encounter between the cultural energy of 1990s Tokyo and the contemporary creative sensibility of Seoul. The result is a flagship that embodies the brand’s taste for productive friction while creating a spatial dialogue between the two cities.