© Prada Aoyama Epicenter in Tokyo; Photo: Christian Schittich
The Omotesando in Tokyo has an almost European flair about it, with trees lining the pavements, street cafes, and trendy people strolling along the boulevard. Built in the 1920s as a route to the Shinto Meji Shrine, it is not far from Kenzo Tange’s Olympic Games structures of 1984. Tokyo is a huge market for luxury goods, and the Omotesando has acquired a cult status as a boulevard where leading fashion houses enhance their reputation by commissioning top architects to design flagship stores. The internationally most acclaimed example of this development is in the southern, somewhat quieter section of the Omotesando, where Herzog & de Meuron have created a house for Prada. With an outer skin that reinforces the image of the concern, this store is a unique and certainly very costly synthesis of the arts (see also Detail 3/04 and 10/04).