The Prada Transformer is a sixmonth installation on the grounds of the historic Gyeonghui Palace at the center of Seoul, South

Korea. Conceived by architect Rem Koolhaas of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the Prada Transformer is a tetrahedron-shaped pavilion designed to house four events devoted to art, film, fashion and the broader culture of Prada. The steel-framed pavilion rolls over between exhibitions, creating a unique environment for each new program.

PRADA TRANSFORMER SEOUL, KOREA

(Prada Transformer) 6 . OMA(Office for Metropolitan Architecture) (Rem Koolhaas) 4 , , , , . .

Prada Transformer

Destabilization: Prada Transformer

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Destabilization: Prada Transformer

The fashion industry is based on change: steady, predictable change. Twice a year the vast network of designers, retailers, manufacturers, critics and shoppers holds its collective breath to find out what comes next. If fashion is to be read beyond that sense of manufactured anticipation, the fashion designer must harness the incessantly cyclical system to fuel an ongoing exploration that expands the borders of the field while questioning its very assumptions. Prada has attempted just that: to create an approach, at once intellectual and contradictory, that perpetually produces newness while simultaneously investigating the limitations of the system. The goal is to embrace all the illogical constraints of the fashion industry never to retreat behind the label of artist and to explore the way in which a designer can create theory through practice. To find alternative perspectives, an essential component of that exploration has been to seek collaborators outside of the fashion world and find inspiration in architecture, art, film and new media. Of those collaborations, perhaps none have been so generative, nor irreverent, as the work between Prada and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). One of the worlds foremost architects, OMA founder Rem Koolhaas, is also one of its greatest skeptics, pointing out the discrepancy between the acceleration of culture and the continuing slowness of architecture. Prada and OMA along with OMAs binary opposite, the think-tank AMO have joined forces on an ever-widening array crossmedia ventures, from stores and tempo-

rary environments to museums, exhibitions, films, websites and product design. If one feature of OMA/AMOs work for Prada is to question the inherent stability of architecture, the Prada Transformer may be the apotheosis of that interrogation. The Transformer defies the basic tenets of gravity, stasis, orientation and location. Designed to accommodate four different public programs, the entire tetrahedron-shaped pavilion flips over after each phase and reconfigures for a new use: the ceiling of one exhibition becomes the floor of the next and the wall of the one after thatand so on. Each floor plan is especially shaped for its content: Waist Down, a film festival, an art exhibition and a special closing event. The Prada Transformer, notes Koolhaas, is a dynamic organism, as opposed to a static object that arbitrarily fits a program. What better place to situate a dynamic organism than at the center of one the largest, most vital cities on earth; the Seoul metropolitan area is home to almost 25 million people and growing. Further accentuating the frisson between the fast and the slow, the Transformer rests on the front lawn of the traditional 16th Century Gyeonghui Palace, one of the treasures of Korean Culture. Architecture cant do anything that the culture doesnt, Koolhaas remarks, but rarely does the form of a building so perfectly match both the content it is designed to contain and the frenetic culture from which it rises. The architecture is literally wrenched from its foundations and with the lumbering movements of an awakened giant, learns to roll with the punches.

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Concept & Vision

The Prada Transformer merges several diverse disciplines within a single building. It unifies the somewhat contradictory facets of Prada such as fashion company versus art foundation while maintaining the autonomy of each. The architecture provides an ideal

spatial condition for each of four different events. Each event has a distinctly shaped floor plane: hexagon, rectangle, cruciform, and circle. As opposed to a typical generic space that accommodates everything, the Prada Transformer literally flips over, changing character

in response to the requirements of each event. This concept yields a certain paradox: while the function of each condition is hyper-specific, the form of the building itself is fleeting, almost indefinable.

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Geometry

The Prada Transformer is a tetrahedron. The four planes have distinct shapes hexagon, rectangle, cruciform, and circle inscribed within the triangular geometry of the tetrahedron. Each of four planned events will take

place on a unique steel-framed floorplate that makes up one side of the building. When the building flips over, each side takes on different functions: floors become walls, walls become ceilings and so on.

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Waist Down Cinema Art Exhibition Special Event

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Geometry
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Plans

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Events

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Location: GyEOnghui Palace

Adding a contemporary element to a historic context, the Transformer is located on the grounds of the 16th Century Gyeonghui Palace, an essential element of Korean cultural heritage.

Seoul is one of the most dynamic and progressive cities in the world. It blends cuttingedge technology and traditional culture; contemporary art with an influential enter-

tainment and cinema industry; sophisticated design and architecture with trend-setting fashion.

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Rotation

The Prada Transformer transforms by rotation. The entire structure is lifted from its foundations using four cranes, flipped, then placed back down. While each transformation marks a change in event, the memory of previous activity,

or anticipation of the next, is present in the walls and ceiling. The change in orientation also allows for multiple uses; for instance, the projection booth of the cinema becomes the stage of the special event.

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Rotation

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Membrane

The entire structure is wrapped in an elastic, translucent white membrane normally used to cover and store large machinery. Stretched tightly over the steel frame,

the skin reveals the hard geometries of the floor plates and provides an amorphous connection between them.

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Architecture OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture)/ Rem Koolhaas PRADA Patrizio Bertelli Miuccia Prada Renato Bodi Kathleen Box Angelica Brancoli Simona Chiappa Johnny Choo Sergio Danese Ivan Deleidi Franco Desci Luca Donati Tomaso Galli Eleonora Goia Jan Kennedy Reese Kim June Lee Marco Previtali Francesca Reali Alessandra Rodolfo Massimo Salimbeni Federica Salmerigo Andrea Scapecchi Daniele Scapecchi Sebastian Suhl Claudio Tonioli Verde Visconti Younghee Yang Silvia Yoon Paola Zancanaro

Architecture & Construction OMA Partners Rem Koolhaas Ellen van Loon Associates  Kunle Adeyemi Kees van Casteren Chris van Duijn Design Architect  Alexander Reichert with Hyoeun Kim Yerin Kang Vincent Mc Ilduff David Moon Mariano Sagasta Claudia Romao Eva Dietrich Alex de Jong Wayne Congar Miguel Huelga de la Fuente Gustavo Paternina- Soberon Namjoo Kim SL + A (Steven Leach and Associates) Jonathan Kim Mark Sang Eunmin S&D Byungho Cho Junghun Ahn Munjong Park Hyunduck Lee Byungwook Cho Cocoon Holland BV Alexander van der Zee Nic Mol Simon van de Pol George van Coezand Rob van Coezand Jed Lee Jan Langeraar Rob de Nijs Richard Witte Lighting Arnold Chan Site Management Laurence Geoffreys, Ltd.: Laurencina Farrant

Financial & Technical Support LG Electronics Hyundai Motor Co. Red Resource Inc.

UPS Visit Korea Committee Special thanks to the City of Seoul, Jongno-gu and Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea

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