Designed with trusted collaborator Snøhetta, Aesop’s Pitt Street store takes inspiration from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 1968-9 Wrapped Coast, which rendered the sandstone cliffs of Little Bay a theatrical, lunar landscape.
While sandstone is the prevailing local geology, granite, an igneous rock known for its strength and durability, lines the pavements of Sydney’s central business district, and this material is used throughout the store. Hewn by a local stonemason, the granite’s texture is poised between the natural and the ordered. Horizontal ridges, scored by a bridge-saw, introduce a consistency of pattern while the hand-chiselled face expresses its fault-lines and idiosyncrasies. The granite’s rich texture sits in contract with an immense stainless-steel counter with a proliferation of basins that welcome product exploration.