MASONPRINCE Store / TOMO DESIGN

Architects: TOMO DESIGN
Area: 500 m²
Year: 2023
Photographs: FREE WILL PHOTOGRAPHY
Lead Designers: Uno Chan, Fei Xiao
Cooperative Design: Psyun, Tie, Jason, Poom
Decoration: Tin, Ho Ching
Brand Upgrade: CÀE.COLLECTIVE
Technical Support: Shenzhen Botoo Construction Co., Ltd
Client: MASONPRINCE
City: Guangzhou
Country: China

MASONPRINCE Store, designed by TOMO Design in Guangzhou, adapts a 1931 Western-style residence into the brand’s first retail space, completed in 2023. The project establishes a narrative built on overlapping timelines of 1931, 2023, and 2231, merging the city’s historical context with speculative futures. Gradient glass, retro objects, and futuristic finishes frame distinct spatial zones that function as stages in a nonlinear journey. The design expresses MASONPRINCE’s philosophy of breaking boundaries and transcending the present while linking the brand’s identity to its urban setting.

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Interview with Uno Chan of TOMO DESIGN

The MASONPRINCE Store in Guangzhou occupies a Western-style house built in 1931, which TOMO Design reimagined as the brand’s first permanent retail location. The design contrasts the vintage character of the structure with futuristic interventions, reflecting the brand’s dual identity.

The project establishes an interrupted timeline, where the years 1931, 2023, and 2231 coexist. Each date symbolizes the same site viewed from different temporal perspectives, linking memory, present reality, and imagined futures. This framework shapes the entire spatial narrative.

The facade introduces the concept through a gradient green glass installation, which marks a symbolic division between the street and the speculative world inside. Visitors enter through a front garden and encounter a bus station, presented as the starting point of a journey across disrupted time.

The store unfolds as a series of themed scenes that transform functional areas into narrative experiences. The foyer introduces a futuristic character, MP.01, while the reception and cashier zone operates as a “time mailbox station.” Accessories are placed within a setting described as an “elevator hall,” and the fitting rooms become a “time-space elevator.”

Material choices reinforce the temporal layering. Metallic finishes engraved with the MASONPRINCE logo overlay the historic walls, combining modern technology with architectural heritage. Dim lighting and video screens extend the narrative, positioning the products as artifacts suspended between different eras.

Deeper in the store, the narrative intensifies. A bathroom is transformed into a time archive, while a retro office is reframed as part of the brand’s fictional storyline. These reinterpretations blur practical function with speculative imagination, expanding the experience beyond retail.

The staircase provides a physical leap between timelines. Positioned between a rustic wall and a polished one, it embodies the dialogue between past and present. This transition leads into spaces where contrasts grow stronger, amplifying the sense of moving between dimensions.

Historic references appear throughout. Retro objects such as typewriters, early computers, and mobile phones slow the perception of time and connect the space to collective memory. In this setting, “MP Studio” recalls a 1930s clothing workshop, with linear display stands resembling assembly lines but crafted with contemporary precision.

Additional spaces reinforce the layered narrative. A reception room lit by flickering firelight injects vitality into the retro setting, while workshop-inspired areas merge industrial references with polished surfaces. These contrasts keep visitors shifting between temporal states as they progress through the store.

The narrative culminates in the coexistence of 1931, 2023, and 2231, presented not in sequence but as overlapping moments. TOMO Design uses this fragmented timeline to convey MASONPRINCE’s philosophy of rejecting limits and “transcending the present.” The result is a retail environment that integrates brand identity, urban history, and speculative imagination into a singular spatial experience.