The Nicolas G. Hayek Center took three years to complete.  At the core of the new center was the Pearl Building, constructed in the 1960s, located in the heart of Ginza.


The new center will be home to seven boutiques (Breguet, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet-Droz, Leon Hatot, Omega and Swatch), as well as the administrative offices of Swatch Group Japan and after-sales service departments. The 14th floor will be devoted to an interaction between the brands and the public, in the form of exhibitions, concerts, and press conferences. Care to guess the price tag?  Over 150 million Swiss francs.

Sometimes though money is well spent and this is one project that deserved its budget.

The Nicolas G. Hayek Center is designed by the renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban who envisaged the building as a hanging garden reminiscent of the ones found in ancient Babylon.  While he is unknown to most of the public, Shigeru Ban has been profiled by Time magazine as one of the world’s top 100 innovators for his designs using paper to construct durable, lightweight emergency shelters. The hanging garden concept was also Mr. Ban’s attempt at introducing gardens into the heart of a modern city. As anyone who has been to Ginza knows, this wall of greenery will provide a marked contrast with the surrounding urban architecture filled with lights and sounds.

Even more impressive are the center’s hydraulic elevators which will in fact be boutiques transporting visitors from the ground floor to the exhibition halls for each Swatch Group brand represented.   It was designed this way purposely so that each brand gets equal attention despite the “small footprint” of the overall building. (Notice the circular Breguet elevator on a telescopic platform carrying a customer to the Breguet exhibit in the front of the picture.  Jaquet Droz's floating boutique is on the lefthand side of the screen.  Notice it is just heading up to the J*D exhibition hall which is one floor above Breguet's)

"We have located one booth for each brand in this street rather like market stalls. The people stroll along this street past the booths," Ban said in remarks released by Swatch, and if they are interested they get into the booth to go to the specific exhibition hall for that brand.

This is the street level, notice the different market stalls/ elevators for the specific brands along its path.  By the way did you notice that the shape of the Breguet elevator platform resembles the ellipsoid shape of the Breguet's watch boxes?  Jaquet Droz's elevator platform is shaped similar to its presentation box as well!

(Mr. Emch and Mr. Ban in front of the square J*D boutique elevator)

For Jaquet Droz here is Mr. Ban’s design concept:

“I have been working on the reconstruction of a small fishing village in Sri Lanka which was destroyed by the Tsunami disaster in December 2004. During my stay there, I came across a wonderful specimen of locally available wood, called Ebony. A deep brown almost close to black in color, it is very hard, heavy, and instills a great sense of luxury.

When I saw the wrist watch from Jaquet Droz, while black was used as a basis to the simple and modern design, the sense of luxury exists through the underlying craftsmanship and tradition. I felt that Ebony was a good match for the boutique interior of such a wrist watch. The repeated rhythm of simplified units made from Ebony created a simple and modern interior with a sense of transparency.”

  <>I guess Mr. Ban is also another admirer of Ebony wood.  Without any more delay here are the first pictures of the Jaquet Droz store located in the new Nicolas G. Hayek center <> from Ms. Kottelat.







Anyone up for a field trip to Ginza?

Thank you Casey for bringing this special opening to our attention.  I look forward to your first hand "field report".  As always my appreciation  to Ms. Kottelat for sharing Mr. Ban's personal insights into the project and these exclusive pictures.

If you want to see other pictures of the new center, check out this article by Mr. Drabble (AKA Dr. No)

click here

Enjoy, Mike

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