ISA puts its name on the “Guggenheim" of Shopping.

Dazzling outside, covered with 15,000 aluminum disks, the new Selfridges megastore in Birmingham is a majestic rounded structure that some have likened to the figure of a woman. Inside, it is immediately captivating, starting from the ground floor where the food hall is, an open maze, a succession of sinuous aisles lined with counters. A delight to the eyes and the nose: ice creams, cakes, fresh pastries, prepared foods, exotic beverages, sushi and chefs bustling about to prepare on the spot the finest of international cuisine, from Chinese dim sum to the Oyster & Seafood bar. A futuristic food hall with an Italian signature, that of ISA, a European leader in the furnishing of display areas for bars, restaurants and shops.

But for ISA, putting its name on the ground floor of the new Selfridges mall was not just a challenge, it was also a confirmation. More than just a department store, the new mall is an architectural achievement, designed and built by Future System, one of the most famous architectural firms in London. Photos of the mall have been published all over the world, and it has already been dubbed the “Guggenheim of Shopping”.

It offers its customers every kind of item, everything that is in the Selfridges catalog; but it is the first level that captures the customer - with food, in the tradition of Selfridges, which has always placed foods and delicacies on its lower level, ever since it was founded by an American businessman in 1909. Seven doors open onto a large atrium, which has a sort of circular recess filled with shelves where bottles of wine and other fine beverages, chocolate boxes and bon bon tins are displayed in pyramids, rows, circles. In the middle are counters for slicing meats and cheeses, preparing foods and displaying prepared dishes.

The ISA name is on all of the refrigerated counters, Globe corner glass and steel showcases, filled with cheeses, prepared dishes, trays of pralines, cakes and pastries. Multi-deck corner merchandisers guide visitors through the hall, gleaming like the day the left the Isa plant. And the Dream deli counters are also ISA products.

No signs appear on the outside, as if there were no need, because by now everyone in town knows that it is the new center for shopping. It may be the first time that this architectural philosophy, previously applied to museums or old industrial buildings, is applied to a large shopping center. And as ISA knows (because it has a sales network monitoring changes in 70 countries all over the world), the shopping world has changed considerably in recent years. Customers must be captured, pampered and sometimes, as in this case, shocked by architectural forms. Vittorio Radice, the man who conceived the project and who until recently was the store group’s chief executive, described the mall as a “sexy big giant.” It is undoubtedly a monument to shopping, and its food department carries an Italian brand in the area of food storage and preservation, which represents the very best of Italian manufacturing design and quality.