Fueguia 1833: A Gallery of Scent That Began with a Friend’s Invitation

It occurred to me to set up an installation that would be a perfumery.
Julián Bedel, translated from Spanish

The First Shop
The Thinking Behind the Stores
Stores to Visit
References

The First Shop

Fueguia 1833 is a perfume house founded by the artist Julián Bedel in Buenos Aires in 2010. The impetus for its shop came when a friend suggested premises at 1680 Avenida Alvear. Bedel had neither sufficient funds nor a business plan, but he wanted to create something that did not yet exist.

It all started with a friend offering me that little shop on Alvear
Julián Bedel, as published in the interview’s English translation

Bedel originally imagined his work with scent as an artistic installation. In a room enclosed in velvet, a central table would hold 15 fragrances. Visitors would lift the covers to discover them, each person left to find what the scents evoked for them. Requests to take a favourite fragrance home led to the business of selling perfume.

In 2011, work was carried out at number 1680 to create a 50-square-metre retail space. The project brought together IttenGroup, responsible for construction and building services, and the architect Javier Iturrioz. Musicians, artists, business leaders and travellers visited the shop, and Fueguia became known through word of mouth.

Fueguia calls its perfume shops galleries. Today, its spaces extend beyond Buenos Aires to Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo and other cities.

フエギア（FUEGUIA 1833）とは？香水ブランドを解説

アルゼンチン発の香水ブランドFUEGUIA 1833について、創設者ジュリアン・ベデルの歩み、南米の自然や文化に着想した香りづくりを紹介します。

The Thinking Behind the Stores

In the galleries, the first step is to approach a bottle and smell the fragrance. For Bedel, curiosity about the scent in front of you comes before learning about the brand’s history or the stories of Patagonia.

The equipment used to explore the fragrances is carefully considered, too. A glass flask is placed over the spray nozzle, presenting the perfume without spraying it into the room. This prevents different scents from mingling in the air and allows visitors to experience them one by one.

it’s not just a funny decoration!
Julián Bedel

Stores to Visit

Alvear, Buenos Aires

Avenida Alvear lies in Recoleta, where former mansions now serve as hotels and embassies. Across from number 1680 stands the Palacio Duhau, now a Park Hyatt hotel.

The Alvear shop has used a central display table with perfume bottles set on wooden stands and covered with round glass smelling vessels. Together with dark curtains and reddish-brown armchairs, they created an interior in which visitors could look at each bottle in turn.

Illustration of Fueguia’s Alvear shop, with purple curtains, botanical pictures, glass vessels and perfume bottles on wooden stands. — The Alvear shop’s display (illustration based on material from 2011)

Among the fragrances Bedel introduced in this small shop were Lago del Desierto, evoking Patagonia’s glacial landscapes, and Biblioteca de Babel, which layers the smells of paper and bookbinding over cedarwood. Visitors first experienced the scent for themselves, then learned about the landscapes or literature that inspired it. Lifting a glass vessel offered a way into Bedel’s creative work.

Ginza Gallery, Tokyo

The starting point for the Ginza gallery was Bedel’s childhood home in South America. Beyond terracotta-coloured arches, perfume bottles catch the light like coloured lanterns. Within the GINZA SIX shopping complex, the space brings a remembered home into the present.

Red pine columns with their bark intact, charred cedar furniture and tamarind wood: IMA, the architects, combined a setting reminiscent of a South American home with Japanese timber and woodworking techniques. Between exploring individual perfumes, visitors can look at the surfaces of the columns and the depth of the arches. Unlike the display tables at Alvear, this gallery invites people to encounter fragrance in a setting that feels like a home.

Illustration of Fueguia’s GINZA SIX shop, with a sequence of arches in terracotta-coloured walls and columns retaining their bark. — The red arches of the Ginza shop (illustration)

Azabudai Gallery, Tokyo

At Azabudai, Bedel and the Japanese team took a treehouse as their starting point for a gallery experienced through all five senses. Perfumes are displayed in an interior that makes the most of the texture of wood, and electric guitars hang on the walls. At the bar, visitors can enjoy wines selected to complement fragrances. Where Ginza draws attention to architecture and materials, the interest here lies in the ways scent, music and taste are brought together.

Music was not an afterthought added to the finished shop. Bedel, who is also a guitarist, considered sound alongside the design of the space. Small speakers are distributed throughout, with the acoustics and volume adjusted so that the music does not interfere with conversation. He personally selects the music, drawing on classical, jazz and contemporary instrumental works, among other genres.

At the Composition Library, visitors can choose two favourite fragrances and buy a set of two 5 ml bottles. The pleasure of exploring how the selected scents change when layered continues beyond the initial encounter in the gallery.