Transformers may be one of the blockbuster movies of the summer but there is a real transformer that has people in the art world buzzing. The Prada Transformer in Seoul, Korea, that is. Leave it Miuccia Prada to orchestrate a fashion, art, architecture, and film festival all under the roof of her specially built morphing structure.Dutch architect Rem Koolhass designed the building that is custom made to change with each event (see diagram) into a hexagon, a cross, a rectangle and a circle. The first event was entitled "Fashion from the Waist Down" and featured Prada's skirts. Currently, a film festival curated by Oscar-nominated movie director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is underway and the festival plans to close with a final fashion show featuring more of Prada's designs.
As for the unique design of the building that houses all these events, Alexander Reichert, one of the chief architects on the project notes that he and his team found inspiration from the city of Seoul:
"You'll find a church next to a beauty clinic. You'll find a skyscraper on a mountain. The Transformer and the neighboring 16th-century Gyeonghui Palace "both symbolize or show the architectural range or the architectural developments in the past 500 years."If you live in Korea or are lucky enough to travel there in the next month, don't miss this event! More information can be found here.
