the world’s most stunning exhibition stand ever built
Spectacular Avant-Garde booth for Baselworld weighed 4,700 Kgs
TAG Heuer’s “SKIN” booth, the most stunning Avant-Garde booth ever built for any exhibition in the world celebrated the union of technology, design and aesthetics and has been categorized as most stunning exhibition stand ever built.
Created by Italian architect Ottavio di Blasi, the booth embodied the brand’s unique vision and drive. The result was a breathtaking “TAG Heuer SKIN,” an extraordinary engineering metallic achievement comprising of a 2-storey, 47-ton steel frame with an 8-ton spiralling carapace of massive aluminium triangles magically suspended on a backlit membrane of some 3,000 points of light. It represents, architecturally, TAG Heuer’s unique position as the most daring and Avant-Garde luxury brand in Swiss watchmaking history.
"TAG Heuer’s new booth is a new landmark at Baselworld, epitomizing the best of contemporary materials and volumes, as well as design and lighting technologies,” says TAG Heuer President & CEO Jean-Christophe Babin.
“Its daring aesthetics project it into the 21st century as a living testimony of architectural avant-garde, but it is above all a statement of TAG Heuer’s commitment to the fusion of design and technology, mirroring the unique DNA and identity of TAG Heuer timepieces.
The new booth’s cutting-edge design perfectly embodies the tensions and elegance of the prestigious sports with which the TAG Heuer brand and its LINK series are closely associated - motor racing with Formula 1, sailing with America's Cup, professional tennis with Maria Sharapova, and golf with Tiger Woods.”
With its unique architecture, the new TAG Heuer booth goes beyond the static square, becoming a moving form generated by an interior force that dramatically pushes, twists and stretches the body of the building up in a spiral to an overhanging point more than 9 meters above visitors’ heads.
Made from wood, steel, and aluminium, the stand featured a dramatic carapace made of triangular scales of brushed aluminium laid side by side to create a skin-like shell. The helicoidal carapace was constructed using sophisticated 3D laser technology to ensure that each triangle is laid equidistant to its neighbors in such a way that identical lines of light surround each scale. So exacting was TAG Heuer’s brief that only a 2mm tolerance was allowed over a total length of 27 meters.
“TAG Heuer is a brand that loves challenges,” declared the Italian architect, Ottavio di Blasi, who also designed TAG Heuer’s flagship boutiques. SKIN’s giant triangular shell demanded a level of precision closer to that demanded by the watch industry than the world of construction. The carapace itself is the semantic element that symbolizes the key values of TAG Heuer universe. It expresses the Avant-Garde, innovation, and technology side of TAG Heuer, but at the same time, through the omnipresent light and the very sensual shape of the carapace, it captures the brand’s glamorous and feminine side.”
Spectacular inside and outside, SKIN is a powerful and beautiful communication tool combined with a fully functional and practical workspace. Comfortable, spacious, and equipped with a very sophisticated air-conditioning system, it will allow TAG Heuer’s representatives to feel perfectly at home during the seven-day fair.
“This new booth is also a tribute to our great trade partners, who have worked with us closely for decades,” concludes Jean-Christophe Babin. “We have significantly increased the working areas to provide them with more comfort and space, allowing them to better receive guests in an environment that literally exudes TAG Heuer’s unique spirit of sport and glamour.”
Cutting-edge and sensual, high-tech and glamorous - it is the interplay of these contrasts that make SKIN a new milestone in TAG Heuer history!
