Rendering of Proposed San Francisco Prada (Rem Koolhaas design)

We missed it, a tipster catches it, you might have already read it. Nonetheless, John King does Rem Koolhaas and reopens the wounds of our lost Prada (above).

6 thoughts on “John King Does Rem Koolhaas”
  1. I still hate the Prada store, and am happy that it wasn’t built. I know that some folks here will think that makes me a luddite, but what I disliked was not that it was a modern statment in a conservation district, but rather that with its structural mesh screen it was not a building that would ever be adaptable for other uses once Prada gave up on it. And just look around Union Square and think about how long any individual store stays in one location…. Gosh, maybe someday someone might want some windows? Also, the design had this ludicrous covered deck on an upper floor…perfect for cold foggy San Francisco. I always thought it was a very masturbatory design and not terribly practical.
    This kind of big name architecture is better for iconic buildings like Museums (hmmm..can’t help but notice the similarities with the DeYoung). I’m not troubled that little retail buildings simply remain stage sets for the goods they sell…doesn’t mean they can’t have some character, but they need to be practical.

  2. I agree with curmudgeon, and this store would not have been his best work. The Beverly Hills Prada is fun, architectural, and pleasant to look at and walk into. The Soho Prada is fantastic. This would have been their weakest architectural statement.

  3. I have never understood why if Union Square is such an important “flagship” retail hub, we always have to wait 15 years behind Los Angeles to get some of these stores. An example is Barneys Dept. Store (How much longer do we have to wait!), MiuMiu, Paul Smith, etc.
    We get The Disney Store, Levis, Nike, etc. Ugh!

  4. LA has the entertainment industry, where what you wear matters. SF has the tech industries, where people wear t-shirts and sweat pants to work.

  5. This facade screen is really a slap in the face to a historic neighborhood. Planting something like this in Soma or on Van Ness or Lombard might be fun, but not here. Another example of a starchitect pulling something out from his pre-existing bag of tricks and plopping them on cities without any regard for the architectural fabric already there. Rem’s Prada store in New York is great because it respects the neighborhood, but is modern and really wild on the inside. We deserve better.

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