The following story originally appeared in The Architect’s Newspaper. It features Detroit’s House of Pure Vin, which was designed by Assistant Professor of Practice Christian Unverzagt and his firm, M1/DTW.

Detroit’s House of Pure Vin lets visitors wine in style

By: Ali Oriaku

House of Pure Vin is a minority-owned wine shop in downtown Detroit contributing to the revival of the city’s historic Woodward Avenue. Architect Christian Unverzagt from M1/DTW helped transform the 3,000-square-foot space into a sophisticated wine tasting shop and tourist attraction.

Unverzagt converted a twisted and irregular retail space into a series of smaller rooms—including a climate-controlled champagne room, recessed retail nook, and tasting room—to provide a sense of visual clarity and allow the space to slowly unfold to reveal new activities to visitors.

House of Pure Vin’s floor plan (Courtesy M1/DTW)

The shop holds over 4,000 bottles of wine, displaying the majority of them within a wall of cardboard tubes typically used for manufacturing. The tubes serve as wine racks, an eye-catching way to store the bottles sideways and shield them from light.

Cork is used for various surfaces within the shop, including the walls and cash wrap, acting as a warm contrast to the black steel and industrial materials elsewhere in the store.