Prada’s Aoyama store in Tokyo is the result of an innovative vision

Much of today’s ‘retail experience’ — mega-malls, mixed-used complexes consisting of shops on the lower levels and then offices and/or residences above — tends to be depressingly homogenous, no matter how much effort the architects and interior designers put into their work. It’s an interesting conundrum, considering how the consumer dollar is coveted. The shopper wants things shiny and new and cutting-edge, but much like the way in which Apple has become ‘mass’ where it used to be niche, retail offerings have also gone the same way.

But back in the last days of the 20^th century, Prada decided it was time to try something new. In 1999, the brand launched its ‘Epicentre Store’ programme to examine different ways of reinventing the retail experience by commissioning avant-garde architects like Rem Koolhaas to design its new shops. Koolhaas’ Prada store in New York raised the bar not just in terms of design but also for its cost — at the time of its commissioning, Prada was US$785 million in debt, but nonetheless committed a budget of US$40 million for 23,000 sq-ft of retail space to be dreamed up by Koolhaas and the team at OMA.

Critical response to the NYC store was mixed, so when Prada shortly went on to commission Pritzker Prize-winning duo Herzog & de Meuron to design its new store in Aoyama, Tokyo, eyebrows were raised. On a recent whirlwind trip to the Japanese capital, I had the opportunity to see the H&deM’s work.

Described as “a hybrid and diffused experience where consumerism and culture fuse together”, the Prada Aoyama store is set on a corner lot surrounded by low-rise, primarily homogenously dull buildings. Six storeys high, H&deM designed a five-sided polyhedral structure with a pointed top, clad with a façade of hundreds of diamond-shaped glass panels. Rather than each panel being identical, they vary from transparent to etched, from flat to concave and convex. The result is tantalising to the eye, creating a constantly shifting perception as the clouds and sun move across the sky, or even as you walk about the building.

Most remarkably of all, H&deM also designed a void immediately next to the store, with a boundary wall that folds and unfolds to embrace the open plaza. This wall, covered with living moss in blocks to create a pattern, terminates at one end with a flight of steps leading to the basement of the shop.

The entire result is both shock and delight, rather like that experienced when you stumble across IM Pei’s glass pyramids at the Louvre for the first time, simply because it is so unexpected. For that reason alone, and for challenging the notion of what a ‘retail experience’ should consist of, both Prada and the architects deserve a standing ovation.