Maison Hermès, Ginza

MAR 23 2009 · 12:00

Renzo Piano's Maison Hermès in Ginza, Tokyo, completed in 2001 and photographed in 2009 — a fifteen-storey tower skinned in thirteen thousand cast-glass blocks, built to sway rather than resist in an earthquake. Japan was the house's proving ground for the idea that a store could be a building worth visiting.