 | The Prada Building in Tokyo, was finished in June 2003. Its a quite impressive building, which shows again how Japanese do not care about how one building fits into the surrounding area.
Since Japanese houses are traditionally made out of wood, they will not last longer than about 60 Years and are then doomed for destruction anyhow. With this spirit, ordinary houses are nothing to conserve, and are thus easily replaced by newer design. This creates always a wild mix of modern and somehow traditional architecture.
Since all large Fashion Brands are trying to build monumental buildings right now in Japan, Prada followed the image of Hermes and used a lot of glass. |
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| The Building stand quite by itself, which is supposed to impress. Its a quite costly thing to create a lot of open space in Japan. Usually there is a maximum of 10 centimeters between two buildings. Here, a kind of Park was built. On the right side of the building, there is a flat area with benches, and a strange tunnel that is covered with moss-tiles. The gate that points to the street hosts a staircase with no signal of what is to be expected downstairs. |
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| The coat-hangers seem simplistic, but at a closer look, they are covered with fur! The different kinds of shelves and tables have a mix of futuristic and seventies design. |
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| You can see the more classical older houses surrounding the building, and in the southern distance the Mori Building of Roppongi hills, towering over the area. To its left, there is Tokyo tower peeking up. The windows give a lot of light to the area. |
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There are more
pictures to be seen at
dezain.net, a Japaneses Design web log, in German at
Sueddeutsche before it was built, with some sarcastic words about the crisis and at
Archidose. There are also pictures before construction, as a
simulation,
The Observer, and
Swissinfo, in Japanese.
