Even if you don't like to shop, go to the
intersection of
Broadway and Prince streets in SoHo to witness, and become part of, the spectacle
of Prada's recently opened flagship store. The design by Rem Koolhaas is
architecture at its most electrifying (and electrified) brilliance. Rumored to
have cost $40 million, or approximately $1,700 per square foot, Koolhaas's
renovation of the bottom two stories of the now-defunct SoHo Guggenheim -- work
that Miuccia Prada and Koolhaas fatuously claim will help to "redefine the
experience of shopping" -- is crackling with innovative ideas, outrageous
compositional gestures, and high-technology theatrics. It reaffirms the Pritzker