“Bahnhofstrasse at the Limmatplatz!”

The architectural design of the Migros Markets encourages interaction between public and sales spaces and incorporates unusually refined materials. Gottlieb Duttweiler described the branch in Zurich’s industrial district as a contribution to reconciliation between the classes.

Gottlieb Duttweiler declares the architecture of the Migros Markets to be a matter for the boss and develops the design elements of these branches together with the architectural office Vogelsanger, Schwarzenbach & Nabold.
An important principle of this architecture is the permeability between the public and the sales spaces, between passers-by and goods. “No door, just free passage, with a warm air curtain to prevent draughts inside. You walk from the street freely inside, under the floating pergola with the brightly lit ‘sky’ above,” writes the Brückenbauer in 1952 about the entrance to the first Migros Market. The glazed entrance area should provide “complete visibility” to the inside of the shop and two side display windows “should show those entering the abundance of the range of goods”.
The inner space stands out because of the exquisite materials, such as natural stone, oak wood and mosaics. Migros wants to do everything possible to “make shopping a pleasure for the housewives” and to do so, it uses “real, beautiful and sometimes expensive materials”, it declares. “What a pleasure it is to bow to the public of a simple district by creating the most beautiful supermarket in Zurich in the industrial district, of all places!” And so the new consumer paradise unexpectedly becomes a political gesture because its doors are open to all: “We think that it contributes to the reconciliation of the difference of ownership that now exists in normal life. More eloquent than the best words are seeing and feeling.”