News Gübelin’s flagship store in Lucerne was recently given a facelift, enabling it to welcome it visitors to a warm and inviting ambience decorated with materials of the very finest quality.
Henceforth visitors to the Gübelin store, located at Schweizerhofquai 1 in Lucerne, will find themselves in a discreetly luxurious world of light where they can discover at their leisure, in the tranquillity of the building’s two floors, the 17 watch brands distributed at the point of sale by this traditional firm par excellence: Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Parmigiani, Omega, Ebel, TAG Heuer, Glashütte Original, Montblanc, Rado, Longines, Charriol, CK, Tissot, Victorinox Swiss Army, Burberry, Cover and, of course, the host brand Gübelin. The work, which began early in March, was carried out briskly to say the least, since it was completed in the space of two months without the store having to be closed.
Designed and carried out by the Lucerne based architectural practice K3 with the support of several regional contractors, renovation work gave pride of place to choice materials in bright colours, ranging from natural Jura stone covering the floors to American cherry wood featured on sales counters. A selection of materials that enhances still further the plenitude and grandeur of the premises: here everything is spacious, radiant and bright… a world of luxury, tranquillity and voluptuousness. Nowhere more so than the Espace Patek Philippe, an open lounge reserved exclusively to timepieces produced at the famous Geneva manufactory, where clients are given carte blanche to make their selections far from the hustle and bustle of the city, so near and yet so removed from these cloistered surroundings.
Development of the family business began in 1854 with the opening in Lucerne of a watchmaking store by Maurice Breitschmied, who twelve years later became the father-in-law of Eduard J. Gübelin. It acquired a faster pace in 1923 with the establishment of the first European gemmology laboratory and, a year later, the opening of a branch in New York, to be followed by all of the main cities of Switzerland. Today the fifth generation is represented by Thomas Gübelin, while his children Raphael and Sara represent the sixth.
With 180 employees, the firm today has seven stores (Lucerne, Zurich, Basel, Berne, Geneva, Lugano and Saint-Moritz), jewellery and watchmaking workshops, and of course its laboratory for the analysis of precious stones. Its turnover is divided between watchmaking (60%) and jewellery (40%).
May 08, 2009
