John Lewis at 150: Store design that has moved with the times

One and a half centuries is an aeon in retail. This is the industry in which if an outfit manages to see out a few decades without a name change, going bust or experiencing multiple ownerships, it is worthy of comment.

For John Lewis, time is on a somewhat different scale and Middle England’s favourite department store has played the long game with a store portfolio that has, for the most part, grown organically, where revamps and refits have been part of good governance.

Practically this has meant a retail organisation that over time has streamlined its in-store appearance to the
point where if the name over the door was removed you’d still know exactly where you were. It hasn’t always been this way, however.

The dawn of time…

…well, the very early years of the last century at any rate. Look at the store frontages of Jessops in Nottingham (now John Lewis), Peter Jones in Chelsea or John Lewis & Company on Oxford Street and they all have one thing in common – a sense of the Victorian Gothic, in architectural terms. These were all department stores, but perhaps the word ‘emporium’ more accurately suits their appearance and feel.

All of them were places where a strong emphasis was put upon an exterior that was imposing and interesting – almost like Old Curiosity Shops, but on a grand scale. They were also destinations where departments such as haberdashery and millinery would have formed important elements of the mix, contributing to the sense rather more of a Victorian enterprise than a modern department store business.

That said, many of the in-store departments that might have seemed old-fashioned not so long ago have undergone a renaissance and the haberdashery department in the Oxford Street flagship (fourth floor) remains a destination in its own right, although it is now known as ‘sewing and knitting’ on the John Lewis website.

The 1930s

As a barometer of changing fashions in building style, John Lewis stores provide a reasonable chart of the passage of time. Following the late Victorian and Edwardian period, the progression to the interwar deco style can be clearly seen in the store that was once known as Bonds (now John Lewis Norwich) and the almost fascist architectural overtones of the John Lewis that opened in Welwyn Garden City just ahead of the Second World War.

What is interesting about both stores is that internally they have been almost completely revamped to reflect current store design thinking at the Partnership.

The Norwich branch may have the sweeping curves and fenestrated Maginot Line appearance of its period, but there is a consistency in what is done internally that means that the shopper could only really be in one place. The same is true in Welwyn which, in 2011, was among the first stores to receive the new-look fashion department, created by consultancy Dalziel and Pow, that is now found across the store portfolio.

Mid 20th century

By the middle of the 20th century the first signs of concrete brutalism had become apparent. While this architectural epoch has come in for much criticism, the best buildings of the period stand out and the Oxford Street flagship is a case in point. The square block that greets shoppers today is essentially the same when viewed front-on as it was when it was built in 1960, complete with Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Winged Figure’ sculpture on the eastern elevation.

The original John Lewis opened on Oxford Street in 1864, but there is absolutely no resemblance between the original and the store in place today after the 1940 bombs of the Second World War. Internally, the store received a makeover in 2007 that involved the installation of two massive atria and a Waitrose collaboration in the shape of the food hall.

This store remains the biggest in the John Lewis estate and as well as being an instantly recognisable structure in its own right, it has also become associated with the Partnership’s new place in the vanguard of retail’s digital revolution.

1990s

Jump forward another 30 years and the tail end of the 1990s retail boom finds expression in the John Lewis store in Cribbs Causeway. First opening its doors towards the end of the decade, it became an anchor tenant at this out-of-town mall just off the M5 and a few miles away from downtown Bristol.

The Partnership took the decision to move here from a building in the city centre that is now a branch of Primark, but which was occupied for a short time by the former Kingston-based department store group Bentalls.

The Cribbs Causeway edifice could hardly have been more different, with a heavy emphasis on natural daylight and external Cotswold honey-coloured stone and steel cladding instead of grey stone and concrete. This store speaks of an almost unbounded confidence that was characteristic of the early Blair years, but which was soon to unravel as boom turned to bust a few years later. The store, however, remains and is a destination for Bristolian shoppers.

The new millennium

The decade just gone brought John Lewis stores that looked almost like architectural playgrounds. Perhaps the most significant was the Cardiff leviathan (opened in 2009) that comes to an end with a point that looks remarkably like the prow of a ship.

As a piece of statement architecture, this store is as much about form as function and it would be hard to walk through the centre of the Welsh capital without noticing it. That said, as with all of the other stores, internally it looks and feels like the current iteration of John Lewis store design.

The same is true of the Leicester store, which opened in 2008 and has a filigree pattern applied across the exterior, giving it a lace-like appearance. This design addition serves no other purpose than to turn heads, and it succeeds.

Today and the future

Visit the newly opened John Lewis in York and it is apparent that it follows the model first unveiled in Exeter in late 2012, a store with a smaller footprint than the usual full-line branch.

This is a multi-floor branch that keeps the spirit of the retail brand, but which seeks to present the offer on a scale that means it can be a market entrant in towns and cities that might not previously have been considered.

Practically, this means that merchandising tends to be tighter and the in-store offer is smaller. The York branch also carries a very large graphic in the atrium where the escalators are located, charting the changing moods and structures of John Lewis stores.

As for the future, the 250,000 sq ft store-to-be above Birmingham’s New Street Station, opening in 2015, looks as though it has been beamed down from another planet. John Lewis has proved adept at changing with the times.