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The twent-foot wide staircase was made of oiled pipe-wood bordered with laminated glass fading from translucent to transparent. Mannequin legs wearing the latest in stockings were placed here and there on the stairs on either side. It had the feeling of being in surrealist art exhibit.

Turning right at the head of the staircase, there is a wall of celery green 4” thick sponge made of UV treated and fire tested resin. It was a fun visual contrast to the sleek space it was contained in.

As for the merchandise, the clothes were hung in a precise linear manner on metal rods. Selection of items to try on would be a straightforward task.

Hung between the neat racks of clothes and displays are flat-screen plasma-monitors that project daily news, stock market data and runway fashion.

The foray into media may have been influenced by OMA’s involvement in designing new headquarters for the Universal film studio, which was purchased by Vivendi. If one goes back to read the OZ books by L. Frank Baum, flat screens such as these were used in the Land of OZ.

As a visionary not only in fiction but in the world of store display, Baum would certainly feel right at home in the Prada Epicenter. L. Frank Baum was editor of the first major American store display periodical, Show Windows.

Privacy Glass & Magic Mirror

I was eager to see the much talked about dressing rooms; “now you see them, now you don’t”.

From the exterior they looked like dressing rooms with walls of transparent glass. When you walk into the room and want privacy you step down on a round metal button on the floor.

The glass is fitted with PDLC (polymer dispersed liquid crystals) and is connected to 70 W amplifiers in a communication room. The glass walls switch to translucent as soon as the electrical current is applied across the two conductive coatings on the film.

The glass walls of the disappearing dressing rooms are called privacy glass. The mirror was magic as well through mystical video technology, you not only saw yourself from the front but from the back. I was a bit flummoxed to say the least. No excuse for an ill-fitting outfit with the magic mirror.

The Glass Roof and Column Free Space

The men’s section is on the top floor. The openness to the sky is an important architectural feature. The all-glass pitched roof is made possible by support from a series exposed tubular steel frames spanning the entire width of the building.

The tubular steel framing acts as a Vierendeel truss to give a seismic-resistant diaphragm for the roof, doubling as support for roof lighting fixtures and providing a level of shading.

The architect’s concept for the Beverly Hills store was a column-free space for the upper levels, which meant tremendous consideration and study for structural solutions.

The support for the building comes from two concrete walls at the north and south of the building extending to the roof to support the gravity loads of all the intermediate floors and glass roof. This apparently transfers seismic forces down to the foundation.

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