vienna

eyond its artistic expression. In the case of the show window,
this means a dramatisation of goods with the purpose of drawing
customers into the shop. Architecture had to sacrifice the
entrance areas of the houses in major streets in favour of the
demand for huge and impressive storefronts. The storefront
on account of its special use, divided the façades of houses in
the commercial zone from the street up to the first floor, while
the rest of the building was in keeping with the intentions of
the building’s architect. Commercial interests of house owners
also helped in rebuilding our shopping streets as we know
them today. Only the entrance level of residential houses was
transformed into storefronts. 135 The impact of a storefront
depends to a high degree on the architectural solution of the
store, its entrance and the show window, and only in a second
stage is its impact dependent on the window’s decoration. At
the beginning of the twentieth century, the design of the newer
and bigger show windows had a major competitive edge. Older
and smaller stores had problems competing with them in a time
when customer expectations were growing at the same speed
as the new field of merchandising was developing its new ideas.
The storefront was and is until today an important aspect of the
store’s advertising function because mass production made new
ways of merchandising necessary. Designed to make space
for the increasing quantity of mass-produced items, the department
store emerged as a new architectural typology in the 1950s.
Shop design became an important means of expressing the
architectural trends of the time. When it was not possible to
rebuild the entire house, refurbishing the stores sufficed to
change the appearance of the shopping streets at eye level. In
the early stages of the new discipline of window decorating
the well-designed artistic show window also became a major
concern, especially from a commercial point of view:
“It seems to me that this is where a new field for art could be,
a field that can bear rich fruit when treated properly. There are
still a few firms whose beautifully decorated show windows
catch our eye, otherwise tastelessness glares at us from everywhere,
presenting to us a very lowly image of this field of art.” 136
135 Austerlitz (1903:25)
136 Friedmann (1903:1)*.
The Sales Window
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