Magical toadstools in the Igelweid

In 1954 the old shop on Ingelweid Street was replaced with the first Migros Market in the canton of Aarau. The building housed over one thousand products and its architecture is unique in Migros’ history.

In the record time of just one year, the demolition of the old branch and the new construction at Igelweid 18 in Aarau is completed. During this time, Migros customers can do their shopping in a provisional ‘sales hut’. Now, in the summer of 1954, the first Migros Market in Canton Aargau is waiting for them.
It has been a long journey from the first shop in the canton’s capital city to the opening of the Migros Market on the Igelweid, and one that has taken surprisingly little time: “Empty egg boxes served as product shelves in the first Migros shop in Aarau on Entfelderstrasse,” a journalist of the Aargauer Tagblatt remembers almost wistfully. “In 1929, a year later, Migros moved into small premises on Zollrain, six months later it is all packed up again and moved to Igelweid when a former brewery warehouse and car salesroom become vacant.”
With consumers’ increased purchasing power and the expansion of the Migros range, a “radical and spacious regional solution becomes necessary”. In fact, Aarau has never seen such a luxury shop. So, on 29 July 1954, hundreds of curious people come to the opening: on 880m2, well over 1,000 articles await them, with foodstuffs on the ground floor, consumer items on the first floor, and in between a staircase that “boldly swings upwards”. New there are also textiles, an Ex Libris book corner and an entire shelf filled with all the “health food articles”. The indirect lighting makes the pillars in between seem like sculptures. They are the magical toadstools in the fairyland of the economic miracle.