Prime real estate for books: Königsallee No. 18 is the Dusseldorf address for a new building planned and realised by sop | architekten and home to the Mayersche bookstore. The location could hardly be more prominent: right where the Kö and pedestrian street to Schadowstrasse meet. This created high requirements for design of the building as well as for safeguarding the listed status of the entire ensemble of Königsallee.

To this end, the architects designed a building that is distinguished by the careful development of its façade. Great care had to be taken to harmonise the proportions of this building’s wall and window elements, the height of its eaves, and its façade structure with those of the adjoining buildings – albeit in a definitively contemporary, modern and non-historicising architectural style. With clean lines and fine details, the design language of the building is deliberately reduced and unornamented, creating an example of elegant contemporary architecture on the premise of “modern architecture on a traditional scale”.