Rose Ointment Inspires LADO’s Design for Benamôr Boutique in Lisbon
In 1925, beauty fans in Lisbon went mad for a new line of ointments made of local lemons, rose, aloe vera, and almonds, each packaged in soft pink Art Deco tubes. Today, their manufacturer Benamôr uses the same famous recipes, selling them around the world and in a new shop in Lisbon’s Príncipe Real district by LADO Arquitectura e Design in collaboration with BA.LA atelier de arquitectura.
“The main inspiration,” says LADO co-founder João Regal, “was the signature Créme de Rosto, which has a beautiful packaging in pale pink, black and white, and touches of gold. Our idea was to design the small shop as a precious case for this special product.”
The shop’s 300-square-feet included a challenging pair of structural arches that bisected the space. The team embraced them, as they couldn’t remove them, and set the cashwrap in the corner section to emphasize its separateness. “I like the way the counterfront wraps the pillar between the two arches,” Regal says. And to keep the shop from feeling too “fake vintage,” he says, they devised a modernist display system in the window’s ceiling, comprising 56 screw hooks from a local hardware shop. It’s a “mini theatre stage grid,” Regal says, painted, of course, Benamôr pink.
