“The supermarket on two floors”

A two-storey Migros Market was built at the market square in Oerlikon in 1956. Shelving along the walls meant that the first floor had no windows, but the ground floor featured a continuous glass window that ensured passers-by wouldn’t miss the vast array of products on display.

The crowds stand shoulder to shoulder on the market place in Oerlikon, the Oerlikon-Seebach band plays a cheerful march, and then Gottlieb Duttweiler takes to the improvised lectern. His exact words are not recorded, but the message is probably similar to that announced in a large advertisement in the autumn of 1956: “The decisive step now follows. Our branch network in the Kreis 11 district is now complete with the conclusion of the construction of a supermarket 25 years after the opening of the first Migros shop.”
The Migros Market Oerlikon is the first in the city of Zurich on two floors. This enables the “maximum usage of the construction site”: foodstuffs on the ground floor, non-food on the first floor, and a staircase with display cases in between. The front façade of the upper floor is windowless in order to “gain the maximum amount of sales space” and to avoid “the disturbing light reflexes” of daylight. Only the snack bar offers a view of the market place. The ground floor, however, offers “an almost continuous, large display window front”. According to Migros, this underlines “the changed purpose of windows in food retailing”. Earlier, the presentation of goods in the display window was the most important advertisement for the retailer. Now, this function is taken over by the shop itself. Migros is therefore convinced that the best advertisement today is “the unhindered view into the Migros Market from outside”.