Milan-based architect Matteo Thun strives to “respect the soul of a place.” So when the German fashion giant Hugo Boss tapped him to design a new concept shop that would showcase all of its tony brands within a gutted former food market in New York City’s Meatpacking District, he developed a program influenced by the site’s gritty past and urban locale. Thun’s design for the store also reflects the corporate image he began crafting with his architecture in 2006 for the Switzerland-based headquarters of the company’s Strategic Business unit. There, he devised a daylight-filled, low-lying building that nestles into a bucolic setting—its glazed curtain wall enveloped by a wooden latticelike “super” structure evocative of the surrounding vineyards.

Once upon a time there were two German brothers-in-law, Christian Wilkening and Friedrich Hahne, who founded