Foreword — the city's memories live in cafés and shops
When I asked a friend to recall the best places in Tehran, he said: 'Vali-Asr Avenue, the open terrace of the Classic Coffee Shop, the Jam-e-Jam shopping centre, such-and-such a store and such-and-such a restaurant…' The point is not to insist on whether the design of these particular places is good or bad. The point is that our memories and mental images of our cities are made by spaces of this kind — places where we share experiences with our city's people, friends and acquaintances; experiences at once collective and individual.
Yet attention to the interior design of banks, branches of stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and to the design of shop fronts, signs, counters, furnishings and similar small-scale details, is among the matters which have received little value in our cities; and in this the architect's role and share in image-making has been very small.
Some of our chain stores — like Kafsh-e-Melli — have always been uniform and stay in the mind; the various branches of certain banks too — for example the older buildings of the Bank Melli, with their good engineering and execution. Although in Iran we do not have stores and brands of world standing, the same Mashhad Leather, Special Leather and Tabriz Leather, or the branches of Boof restaurants — which seek to assert themselves in the city — are good subjects for interior design and for architects.
The two-way pull: architecture and fashion
Recently, the effect of architectural thought on drawing the public's attention to the branches of international fashion stores has been considered, and architects, too, have set out to see the matter of shopping from new angles, and to transform it by new methods.
Living in today's world has, willingly or not, given rise to new patterns for shopping, eating, banking and the like; and matters such as security (reducing the chance of theft from the shop), speed of purchase, ease of payment methods, the elimination of fraud in goods, the right design of shelves and fitting rooms, and the placing of mirrors, are among the most basic concerns of the design.
The two-way pull and attraction that today exists in the West between architecture and fashion design — though it appears a recent development — has its roots in the 1970s, when fashion designers stepped beyond the limits and conventions of the past, and, for marketing and the making of a fresh image of their stores, decided to collaborate with architects.
Fashion designers and well-known architects
Recently, well-known world architects have, in pursuit of the transformation and modernisation of shopping and the design of shopping centres, collaborated with wealthy clients and the owners of famous names and brands of clothing, perfume and cosmetics, to create — with new ideas and the use of technology and information — a new image of shopping and the shopping centre.
Sottsass, Foster, Citterio and a number of others have designed for the Esprit brand; Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer, continues his work with architects including Frank Gehry; in Milan, Giorgio Armani has employed Tadao Ando for the design of his fashion hall; the design of Calvin Klein's 'Ice Palace' has been undertaken by John Pawson, the English minimalist; the Helmut Lang shop has been designed by Richard Gluckman; and finally Rem Koolhaas of the Netherlands, Pritzker laureate of 2000, with his new theories has carried this transformation forward in the design of the new Prada store in New York — to which we shall come below.
Of course the balance between the architect and the fashion designer seems fragile; the changes of fashion are very hurried and fast. While the architectural world is just reacting to Koolhaas's theories at Prada, fashion designers are already busy judging the new Dior store in Milan.
In Iran, too, many shopping centres have recently undertaken interior design, decoration and furnishing, and this profession has played a role between art and graphics students, craftsmen, a group of non-professional designers, and even the shopkeepers themselves. For this reason, in this issue we have introduced briefly one foreign example — Rem Koolhaas's design for the new Prada store in New York — and one local example — the Tandor clothes shop.
The Prada store / Koolhaas / New York
What drew Prada's attention to information technology (IT) was, in fact, Koolhaas's intuition that the company would in future need to make the experience of shopping more modern through technology. Koolhaas designed for Prada in collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron, and says that Miuccia Prada has been the best client he has ever had — for she would spend most days in Koolhaas's office in Rotterdam following the project's details.
The key technology used in the Prada scheme is the use of radio tags. Each Prada item carries its own chip, which holds ten times more information than the standard barcode. This property allows Prada to follow its products from factory and warehouse and transport to their arrival in the shop; in the end, the shop knows exactly how many items it has in stock, when the next consignment will arrive, and what the warehouse holds.
These tags allow the digital display of clothes on screens throughout the shop, and at the same time guarantee the items' authenticity — for copying radio frequencies is hard for counterfeiters. The programming inside these tags also makes them act as a security device, sounding an alarm when goods leave the shop without authorisation. From the moment of purchase and payment, information about the date and place of purchase and so on is stored on the tag and acts like a complete receipt.
This technology has been employed in all parts of the shop; even the staff are required to wear wristbands containing information specific to them. The display shelving is movable, allowing the space to be opened up by sliding the racks back and forth. Fitting rooms have, in place of mirrors, cameras for a rear view; these cameras, first shown experimentally in Milan, are used here.
The cost of this project, by Koolhaas's own account, was $23 million; according to The New York Times, $40 million — a very high figure compared with the American Folk Art Museum, which opened the same week at $17 million. One critic has charged Koolhaas with sharing in a rush towards commercialisation; in his view, Koolhaas's graphic schemes in this shopping centre, instead of clarifying and explaining space, are better at trapping people. In general, the wide use of technology and information has driven the architectural world to react and to discuss this project. Koolhaas himself says: 'We are working together to invent a new manner of shopping, and Prada is fully aware of what is being done.'
Notes: 1. Sottsass · 2. Foster · 3. Citterio · 4. Esprit · 5. Issey Miyake · 6. Frank Gehry · 7. Giorgio Armani · 8. Tadao Ando · 9. Calvin Klein · 10. John Pawson · 11. Helmut Lang · 12. Richard Gluckman · 13. Rem Koolhaas · 14. Pritzker · 15. Prada · 16. Dior. Images from: Domus 845, Feb 2002. Sources: Domus 850 — 'The Art of the Bank'; Domus 845 — 'The Reinvention of Shopping' / 'Koolhaas: New Store for Prada'.