'Dressed in Prada,' traditional Korean palace set to greet visitors

By Shin Hae-in

SEOUL, April 23 (Yonhap) -- A transformable steel structure built as part of a pure arts project by Italian Fashion brand Prada opened at a traditional palace in Seoul Thursday, ready to showcase a series of cross-cultural exhibitions and live events for Seoulites and more.

"Prada Transformer," designed by world-renowned architect Rem Koolhaas, is a
comprehensive art house that combines four different structures -- hexagon,
cross, rectangle and circle -- to be reconfigured with each new program it
features.
"The Prada Transformer project will be our key communication platform in 2009.
The fact that we have selected Seoul to implement it is a recognition of the
importance that we give to Asia, Korea particularly, because of its fast growing
pace both in the business and cultural space," said Patrizio Bertelli, organizer
of the event.
Situated in the front year of the 16th-century Gyeonghui Palace, Prada
Transformer was realized with the support of Korea's LG Electronics, Hyundai
Motor Company and Red Resource Inc. to juxtapose Korean history and tradition
with a 21st-century multi-dimensional event space.
The 20-meter-high steel frame revealed Thursday is one of the most unusual
structural works to be spotted in Seoul, covered by an elastic, translucent white
membrane -- normally used to cover and store large machinery such as old
airplanes -- revealing the hard geometries of the floor plates.
"The interesting thing about this building is the acknowledgement of the
Transformer as a dynamic organism, opposed to simply a static object, which
arbitrarily fits program" said Koolhaas, who designed the building.
The art house will be accommodating a range of different art, cinema, and fashion
events beginning this weekend, starting off with "Waist Down - Skirts by Miuccia
Prada," showcasing a collection of skirts "in motion" ranging from the first ever
Prada show to the present day. Skirts by emerging Korean fashion students will be
included to show the interaction between two fashion worlds and to amplify the
meaning of fashion from different cultural perspectives.
Additionally, an art installation by Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg entitled
"Turn into Me (2008-2009)," curated by Germano Celant, will be presented. The
installation will consist of several three dimensional constructions inside of
which provocative and ironic short animated video works will be projected onto
video screens.
The exhibition space will then be transformed into a cinema showing a series of
films selected by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the director of Oscar-nominated
"Babel," from June 26. The program will span multiple genres, countries and
decades of filmmaking.
Further cultural activities will be announced in the lead-up to the launch of the
project which will run for about five months through September.
South Korea's culture ministry said it will use the venue as a tool to promote
its "Visit Korea" campaign in 2010-2012.
"This will be an excellent opportunity to promote Korea to overseas travelers,"
the ministry said in a press release. "Prada's effort to use art, cinema and
culture as a method of upgrading its commercial image tells us a lot of things."