Shopping is a deeply modern strategy of conquest. It has
been pursued with success in large cities for over 150
years. The urban battle zone, divided up according to
shopping streets and shopping arcades, gets systematically
unfurled, and shops get taken one by one. Tips are
distinctions that are passed on in a circumspect manner.
Actually buying something isn't necessary at all - just
gazing into opulent shop windows and weird stores is
usually fulfilling enough as it is. The best places that
seduce the gaze, therefore, are those with assortments
that do not trigger an intense and time-consuming urge to
buy. One such is an establishment opened in 1950, the
orthopaedic shop Serra on the c/ Muntaner 55. A perfect
presentation of every kind of device that supports, binds
or corrects, demonstrating the frailty of the human body
behind glass with utter precision. Or the Adagio musical
instrument store, which presents grand pianos in a 70s-
style setting, discreetly integrated into a landscape of
lime-green carpeting combined with a Rococo mirror. Lamps
reminiscent of a snail's feelers glow all over the place.
Collectors looking for details betraying a design
intention will have a field day here. Also at the Cottet
spectacle store, built in 1976, with its optical frame-
shaped door handle ushering visitors inside. Or get lost
in a book at the Ancora y Delfin bookstore, designed in
1956 by the German painter Erwin Bechtold. The classically
modern, clearly laid out interior contains a fine
assortment of books that can help in the planning of
further campaigns of conquest in the city.
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