7 Must-See Street-level Commerical Façades in Spain

Designers have only moments to grab the attention of busy passersby with commercial façades. They provide an opportunity to visually display the client’s brand identity and create a connection with the product or service offered. Façades should lure customers to enter and, ideally, after the experience, want to return.

These seven commercial façades in Spain all have high visual appeal. Some align the façade with the brand logo and the interiors. Others base their appeal on immersion in a neighbourhood or recalling times past.

Mango Teen (C/ de Potosí, 2 Centro Comercial La Maquinista, Local, 08030 Barcelona)

Award-winning Valencia-based creative consultancy Masquespacio designed the first Mango Teen store in Barcelona, which opened in June 2022. The user experience had to simulate different perspectives and incoherent elements in dreams. The space identity connects with the lifestyles of core customers. The designers achieved this with color and design elements that play with the mind and invite customers to interact with the objects surrounding them, thus bringing the metaverse world to reality.

Read more in Masquespacio Designs a Surreal Dream Experience for Visitors to the Mango Teen Store in Barcelona.

Kimpton Vividora (Carrer del Duc, 15, 08002 Barcelona)

The Barcelona -based studio El Equipo Creativo designed several spaces in the Kimpton Vividora Barcelona hotel, part of the Kimpton hotel group. They sought to create a dialogue between the boutique hotel and its location in the famed Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, with its narrow streets that lead to unexpected plazas and patios. Visible from the street-level façade, Cafe Got has a curated selection of contemporary furniture and classic tilework that injects a local flair that invites guests and visitors alike to enter.

Learn more about this project in El Equipo Creates Urban Retreat for Travelers and Locals in the Kimpton Vividora Barcelona.

Malafacha (Plaza de Cantarranillas, 7, 47003 Valladolid)

Based in Valladolid, the capital of the Spanish autonomous community of Castile and León, the multidisciplinary local studio Mediterranean Fusion designed the Mexican restaurant Malafacha with a combination of primary colors as intense as the food. The bright bluefaçade with its blue and pink signage mirrors the interior chromatic palette and hints at what is to come.

Learn more about this studio in Profile: Mediterranean Fusion: Exploring New Design Horizons from Valladolid.

Hijo de Epigmenio (C. de la Puebla, 13, 28004 Madrid)

Juan Manuel Gil López is the son of (hijo de) Epigmenio. He sells a curated selection of artisan products from across Spain in his shop Hijo de Epigmenio. The exterior of the shop is characteristic of a historic Malasaña neighbourhood. Located in a low-rise building with an unadorned façade and wrought iron balconies, it is typical of the architecture in the neighbourhood. He explains, “The façades are composed of small balconies that align, characteristic of the architecture of the old neighborhoods in the center of Madrid built around 1900”.

Learn more in Hijo de Epigmenio: For the Love of Spanish Crafts.

Little Stories (Carrer del Pintor Salvador Abril, 30, 46005 Valencia)

Valencia-based Clap Studio designed the Little Stories shop in Valencia that sells children’s footwear and accessories. The design of the interior encourages imagination and highlights the products on display. The large windows expose the open-plan layout of the interior making the entire shop a storefront. The user-friendly shop logo and signage in simple, minimalist sans serif typography and a system of lines accord with the shop’s multi-format brand identity. As Clap Studio co-founder Àngela Montagud says:

“Little Stories is very special because it was our first retail project. We did both the branding (the visual identity) and the interior. That’s why everything looks balanced and connected. For the brand, we created a visual identity accompanied by a series of lines that emit dynamism and help the brand with its messaging. On the façade, we wanted to capture the brand identity using these lines. We arranged these lines to play with the shape of the windows. The result is a façade that transmits playfulness and dynamism in a very subtle and elegant way, connecting at the same time with the product inside: sneakers for the little ones.

Learn more about this award-winning studio in Profile: Clap Studio: One to Watch.

Cocol (Costanilla de San Andrés, 18, 28005, Madrid)

Pepa Entrena sells artisanal objects de toda la vida that many of her fellow Spaniards recall from childhood. She opened her shop Cocol in 2017 on the Plaza de La Paja, one of the oldest squares in Madrid and the heart of the city. Located in the La Latina neighbourhood, it is near the Arab Wall, the first wall of Madrid built during the emirate of Muhammad ben Abd al Rahmman between 850 and 866.

Upon entering the striking blue doors, customers recall time spent in their grandparents’ home or at a village shop through an immersive experience: the smells of wax, clay, leather, esparto straws, wool, and soap. They encounter a variety of everyday objects- traditional ceramics, enameled utensils, mortars, cutting boards, blown glass, cotton towels, wicker, and straw- feeling the urge to touch and feel to rediscover materials and textures. There are ceramics from Granada, basketry from Alicante, and esparto from Murcia. Pepa does not use intermediaries, preferring direct relations with the artisans who supply the products.

The wooden façade and large windows are original and have received heritage protection. The shop was a tapestry workshop for over 50 years, the business and home (in the back) of Don Wenceslao Fernández. He was an upholsterer by profession and the grandson of the court upholsterer. On his departure, he left much of the interiors intact, including the thick nails where he hung the furniture of his aristocratic clients, a decorative feature that Pepa has preserved. Leaving the floor and walls intact, Pepa brought decor and furniture pieces from a fabric shop in the center of Madrid that had closed, maintaining an old-world feel for the interiors.

The shop at number 18 on Costanilla de San Andrés street is genuinely a neighbourhood shop that connects with times past in an authentic way.

Learn more in Cocol: Things de toda la vida.

Living Bakkali (Carrer de Xile, 9, 46021 València,)

Masquespacio designed the interiors of Living Bakkali, a restaurant in Valencia that provides guests with a gastronomic and visual journey to an adobe, the architectural style found in the desert. The façade is in accordance with that theme with its textured wall, windows, and images of adobes.

Learn more about this project in Restaurant in Valencia Transports Guests to an Adobe in the Desert.