TEMPORARY STORES

摘要

In The Consumer Society, Jean Baudrillard analysed consumerismasacommunicationprocessrnthat transforms objects into symbols, stating: "Medieval society hovered between God and the Devil; ours sits midway between consumerism and its condemnation." Claudio Marenco Mores's fine book begins with the idea that shopping has become the activity that most defines public life. Because of this trend in the global market economy, a few decades ago the fashion-star system realised the importance of expressing a personal aesthetic vision in more than one direction in order to develop a single recognisable image. The book addresses the relationship between fashion and architecture and how the latter has played an increasingly important role in the localisation of brands or products in the imagination of the average consumer. Architects of the calibre of Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry and Claudio Silvestrin have designed the shop concepts of Esprit, Prada, Hermes, Issey Miyake and Giorgio Armani, respectively. In such cases, the designer-client dynamic harks back to the idea of the Renaissance clientele,rnin that the mechanism adopted to represent something ephemeral and intangible is made physical by tangible forms and surroundings.