The stylish supermarkets

The supermarket chain MPreis has been rewarded for its development vision by being chosen as Austria's principal representative at the Venice Architecture Biennale (Sept. 12 to Nov. 7, 2004.)

MPreis has 120 supermarkets around the Tirol valley, and for the past 15 years it has been commissioning up-and-coming architects to design bold and innovative new stores that aim to improve the experience for customers and staff, and achieve some kind of harmony with the area's extreme natural landscape.

Its refusal to settle on a fixed architectural identity has given MPreis the flexibility to be able to fit stores into sites other companies might have thought twice about, and the freedom to unpick many of the supermarket model's long-standing standard assumptions.

From The Guardian, via Archinect.
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