Shop Front Design

SHOP FRONT DESIGN. The shop front, since the earliest days of barter, has been a pertinent problem in design for the obvious reason that, apart from the requirement of presenting merchandise attractively, the interest of the prospective customer has had to be maintained.

History.

The stores of the Roman forum, and in particular the light thrown upon the habits of the populace by the resurrec tions of Pompeii, show that the shops of earlier generations had much in common with ours. E. Jaussely prepared a series of drawings of the forum of Pompeii which indicate clearly how these stores might have appeared. Chifflot completed a remarkable work showing a restoration of the house of the Centenaire which showed the palatial home of the owner with its interior courts away from the street, and facing the street the small shops which were rented to merchants whose interests were quite separate from the house at the back. The stores were open to the street, inas much as the use of glass, for enclosure, was unknown. The design of the stores themselves, however (assuming that the restorations are reasonably accurate) indicate an attempt at design which would appear to be normal for a shopkeeper aiming to attract the passer-by. The stores always clustered around the main build ings of the city throughout the East, and later throughout Europe.

Throughout the East, the bazaar has been, and still is, the source of barter of goods of any type. The form of the bazaar varies from the covered passageway either partly or entirely pro tected from the sun's rays to the open market. The arrangement of goods consists primarily in displaying the complete stock. The same theory of display holds good in the modern five-and ten-cent store where the first principle is to hold the attention with an enclosure of vivid red, in which as much stock as can be placed is visible.

Throughout the middle ages, the cathedral was the focal point of public interest, and around it would be found the stores of popular appeal. Unfortunately, in the last century many of these accretions were eliminated on the theory that the architec ture of the original structure should be kept intact, with the result that to-day many churches, such as Notre Dame, in Paris, actually seem cold standing as they are, isolated from the more immediate life of the public. The bridges of the great cities,

because of their importance as public arteries, long held the stores that still divert the tourist on the Rialto in Venice or the traveller crossing the Arno in Florence. Pont Neuf, in Paris, lost its stores in the final rebuilding during the 19th century. The International Exhibition in Paris, in 1925, revived this feature by building shops on the Pont Alexandre III, and most interesting they were, in spite of the transitory nature of their building materials.

Throughout France, many examples are still in evidence at Caen, Bourges, Rouen, Compiegne and as well in Paris, itself, of historic buildings of excellent design, where the store was planned as the important feature of the building. It is of course equally clear that during the middle ages, and even up to the French Revolution, the shopkeeper under the guild system maintained a certain dignity quite distinct from the aristocratic classes, and inasmuch as the store was often the outlet for goods manufac tured above by the family, or the outlet for merchandise assem bled by the owner, it was possible to beautify the store in pro portion to the artistic intelligence of the proprietor. A shop which, in some measure, explains this principle, may be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where an armourer's store, with its extremely interesting detail, has been bodily removed from France, and is displayed as an adjunct for the display of armour. (See ARMS AND ARMOUR.) The inns, such as the Hostellerie du Grand Cerf, at Les And elys, built during the i6th century, are quite definite instances of unusually good design developed under trade requirements. The inns, like the modern restaurants, had similar requirements of attraction and were successful without question, in proportion to the charm and interest they maintained. Another exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum, emphasizing a quite different social phase, is an i8th century store front of painted and carved wood.