Odin New York
328 East 11th Street
New York
Tel: 212.475.0666
Designer: Snarkitecture

Temporary architecture often serves as a liberating typology for experimental architecture. Due to its nature as a short-term investment and low financial risk, young architects are often allowed to try out new, albeit low-cost, alternatives to traditional building. Brooklyn-based design firm Snarkitecture’s pop-up retail space for high-end perfumery Odin is an example of what can go right when these experiments work out.

For the six-week lifespan of the store in New York’s East Village, the architects created a haunting, white-on-white installation out of over 1,500 small gypsum-cement castings derived from the form of Odin’s signature bottle, a simple glass cube with a cylindrical cap. Snarkitecture wanted their all-white architecture to contrast with Odin’s precious all-black bottles, of which only a few are featured at the store. One flowing planes of the white castings is suspended from the ceiling and is mirrored on the ground plane, supported on white rods. The undulating form will offer patrons a moment of contemplation about the striking spatial effects created by the repetition of a simple object and will also highlight the small black bottles for sale, adrift in the milky sea of cast bottles. The small storefront serves as a backdrop for this installation, and its long proportions highlight the form of the intervention.