Prada's The Infinite Palace by OMA

AMO [ the research branch of rem koolhaas’ OMA] has designed for Milan’s Men’s and Woman's Fashion Week 2015. AMO has created a new catwalk-showroom space entitled the ‘infinite palace’. Designed for luxury fashion house Prada, the runway extends through a enfilade of connected rooms that gradually shift in size and proportion, according its authors the design of these spaces allows a series of more intimate moments.

The interiors of Infinite Palace, designed by AMO, are clad with a blue and black marble effect, transforming the volume into a disorienting three-dimensional landscape. The floor is lined with geometric aluminum inserts that provide a sense of continual movement and delineating the spatial configuration in this performance space for Prada.

Team AMO.- Cedric van Parys, Giacomo Ardesio, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli (Partner), Miguel Taborda.

Description of project by AMO

The existing room is disguised into a classic enfilade of rooms, gradually changing proportions as in an abstract mannerist perspective. As opposed to a single stage, the new sequence of spaces multiplies and fragments the show into a series of intimate moments

The progression through the connected rooms simulates endless repetitions and symmetries, while providing the illusion of an infinite palace. As the models move linearly across the enfilade the audience, divided into small groups, are pushed to close and intimate proximity with the collection.

Blue and black (false) marble cover the floors and walls transforming each space into a tridimensional excavation. In this disorientating landscape aluminum geometric inserts in the ground mark the sequence of spaces.

Description by PRADA

This first part of the Autumn Winter 2015 fashion show continues Prada’s analysis of the relationship between men and women. What are the unexpected possibilities, the various relationships, that may occur between the way men and women can or would dress? The way they represent themselves? This is a subject always under investigation.

The influences of one upon the other are non-linear, asymmetrical, unobvious but always profound. Gender is a context and context is often gendered. At times, the extra inspiration comes, ultimately, from women bur it can also happen the other way around.

Such similarities and differences are the spirit being presented here and lead to cross- references of an idea and the freedom to interpretation.

These shows are the perfect moment to analyze this subject more deeply to measure what the genders share, what they take from each other.

Everyday life reminds us of the many nuanced and porous exchanges that have historically proliferated in the gender field and obviously in life.

Today, more than ever, it is an evolving and essential spirit for the coming Prada seasons.

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Plan Prada's The Infinite Palace by OMA. FW 2015 Men’s and Women’s. Image courtesy via OMA.

FW 2015 Men’s and Women’s. Photography © Agostino Oslo; OMA and Prada.

Prada's The Infinite Palace by OMA. FW 2015 Men’s and Women’s. Photography © Agostino Oslo; OMA and Prada.

FW 2015 Men’s and Women’s. Photography © Alberto Moncada; courtesy of Prada.

FW 2015 Men’s and Women’s. Photography © Agostino Oslo; courtesy of Prada.

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More information

OMA. Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

Laboratorio de ideas de la Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). AMO

AMO is the think tank of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), co-founded by Rem Koolhaas in 1999. Applying architectural thinking to domains beyond building, AMO has worked with Prada, the European Union, Universal Studios, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, Condé Nast, Harvard University, and the Hermitage. It has produced exhibitions, including Expansion and Neglect (2005) and When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013 (2013) at the Venice Biennale; The Gulf (2006), Cronocaos (2010), Public Works (2012), and Elements of Architecture (2014) at the Venice Architecture Biennale; and Serial Classics and Portable Classics (both 2015) at Fondazione Prada, Milan and Venice, respectively.

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a coloured "barcode" flag – combining the flags of all member states – that was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU.

AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including The Gulf (2006), Cronocaos (2010) and Public Works (2012) and for Fondazione Prada including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its principle publication Elements. Other notable projects are a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

Published on: January 19, 2015

Cite: "Prada's The Infinite Palace by OMA" METALOCUS. Accessed

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