Hermès wraps its Beijing flagship in rose-pink and terracotta ceramic tiles.

Five storeys, free-standing, clad entirely in rose-pink and terracotta ceramic, with a separate metal "birdcage" structure hovering above. It is the most architecturally ambitious retail build of 2026, and the material is doing the arguing.

The project

Hermès opens its fourth Beijing store on 2 April 2026 — its latest address in a city it’s called home since 1997, and its first freestanding building in the capital. Situated at N7 Taikoo Li Sanlitun North (19 Sanlitun Lu), the new space is a proper statement: a five-storey freestanding glass structure wrapped in rose-pink and terracotta ceramic tiles, designed by RDAI — Hermès’s long-time architectural steward — in collaboration with Mamou-Mani Architects on the façade. The building straddles two levels, which means the store has two entrances, each displaying the house’s ex-libris.

The façade operates on two layers. The ceramic-tile envelope works as a semi-transparent veil — rhythmic, balanced, letting natural light flood the interiors without fully giving the game away from the street. Above it sits a separate metal structure, webbed and ornate, that was playfully nicknamed “the birdcage” — a deliberate nod to Beijing’s bird-walking culture dating back to the Qing Dynasty, when gentlemen would carry their caged songbirds through the city’s parks. Topping it all, standing at the southeast corner of the roof, is the Hermès firework-maker — the house’s horse-riding figure holding two flags, a brand-signature sculpture re-imagined in Beijing context.

The commissioning narrative has 30 years of backstory. Artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas, speaking at the opening: “It is a great emotion to be back in Beijing. Thirty years ago, before the opening of the first store in The Peninsula Beijing, I made a promise to my late father, Jean-Louis Dumas. We went walking in the streets of Sanlitun, and my father told me one day we must have a freestanding store here. So here we are. My dear father — we fulfilled the promise.” Axel Dumas, the group’s sixth-generation CEO since 2013 and Pierre-Alexis’s cousin, opened the first Beijing store alongside him in 1997. The Sanlitun flagship completes a decades-long architectural thread.

The design

Inside, the layout is open-plan and anchored by a stone staircase that spirals through all five floors. The motifs from the façade — arched forms, woven patterns — carry through into the staircase design, so the building reads as one coherent thing rather than an exterior bolted onto a retail interior. Denis Montel, artistic director and executive vice president of RDAI, on the colour research that underwrites the scheme: “We built the colour range of the project based on old Chinese paintings, especially from the 16th, 17th, and 19th centuries.” The terracotta shades on the façade, the tones through the interior, the material decisions floor by floor — all built on four centuries of Chinese painterly record rather than a mood-board of contemporary references.

The ground floor splits between shoes and silks at the front, perfume and beauty towards the back. The first floor brings the silk universe together with equestrian collections and fashion jewellery, all sitting against a multi-coloured mosaic patchwork drawn from the flooring of Hermès’s Faubourg Saint-Honoré flagship in Paris. Second floor covers women’s and men’s ready-to-wear alongside shoes, fitting rooms and a private salon. Third floor is where home collections, leather goods, watches and jewellery live — framed by wood marquetry, a lacquered wall engraved with peony motifs and ceramic brick walls arranged in an H pattern. Above the third-floor home collections, a geometric interpretation of a flock of birds — dubbed “murmurations” by the design team — extends the birdcage concept from the façade into the interior. Montel, on the gesture: “It invites birds, conceptual birds, into the building.” The top floor is a large private salon that opens onto a landscaped terrace.

The design draws on the nearby Forbidden City — curved glazed ceramic rooflines, sunlit colours, layered materials — without leaning on it too heavily. It’s a reference rather than a reproduction, which is the right call.

One more detail worth naming: 100 percent of the construction was locally produced. Furniture was custom-made by a Beijing-based design brand; carpets by a Hong Kong manufacturer. A Parisian architectural steward commissioning a Chinese construction ecosystem to deliver a building about four centuries of Chinese painting. The material argument is the cultural argument.

The art and the objects

A curated selection of artworks runs throughout, including pieces from the Émile Hermès collection and the Hermès Collection of Contemporary Photographs. The standout commission is a hanging installation by Chinese artist Liu Jianhua — handcrafted ceramic petals and marble roundels suspended from the top of the staircase, evoking the movement of a horseman’s crop. It’s the kind of thing that earns its place rather than just filling a wall.

To mark the opening, a limited edition run of objects has been produced — reportedly including leather goods with dragon motifs by Chinese artist Tong Ren, alongside a Sanlitun-exclusive Mini Bolide bag produced specifically for the location.

The build and the cost read

No primary-source figures published. Estimation with reasoning shown.

Façade and shell. A five-storey freestanding glass structure with bespoke terracotta ceramic cladding and a separate metal envelope above is a significant specialist scope. Mamou-Mani Architects’ involvement on the façade suggests computational/parametric design with specialist manufacture — the practice is best known for Burning Man’s Galaxia temple and for computational work meeting artisanal fabrication. The closest comparable in Issue 01 is the Tiffany Sanlitun 1,000 m² MVRDV façade (curving translucent glass fins); Hermès is larger, taller, and more complex with the dual envelope. Plausible façade-and-shell budget: £10m–£25m.

Interior fit-out. Five floors with distinct material registers per level — Faubourg-inspired mosaic flooring, wood marquetry, lacquered peony-motif walls, H-pattern ceramic brick, spiral stone staircase, landscaped terrace. Liu Jianhua hanging installation. Émile Hermès collection and contemporary photography installations throughout. Custom Beijing-fabricated furniture; Hong Kong-produced carpets. 100 percent local production. Likely range for interior fit-out: £15m–£30m.

Programme. An April 2026 opening of this scale, following Hermès’s active planning at least from 2022–23, implies a design programme running approximately 2022–2025 with construction from 2024–2026. Mamou-Mani’s computational façade work would add 12–18 months to pre-construction programme. Total design-to-open: likely 36–48 months. No indicators of value-engineering in the coverage. The 100 percent local production decision suggests Hermès prioritised Chinese craft integration over cost optimisation — consistent with the Jean-Louis Dumas 30-year promise framing.