The New High Tech Retail

The New Yorker pans the latest attempt by architect Rem Koolhaus and Prada to redefine retail space in "epicenters".

1 minute read

April 1, 2002, 12:00 PM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"Alas, however, the first of these new stores, the Prada shop at 575 Broadway, in SoHo, is not a staggering reinvention of the retail environment, no matter what Koolhaas and his followers claim. The enormous new store, which cost somewhere in the neighborhood of forty million dollars, combines some hard-edged late modernism with some fancy technology (glass-enclosed dressing rooms that turn translucent at the touch of a button), and comes in a package that, like a lot of Koolhaas's work, mixes roughness with sleekness in a way that never manages to avoid seeming self-conscious."

Thanks to ArchNewsNow

Sunday, March 31, 2002 in The New Yorker

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