First, imagine a heart drawn around “Rem & Prada” above. I’m usually not one to have knee-jerk reactions to the starchitects (I’ve visited IIT and Seattle, and neither lived up to the praise nor the condemnations), but it appears that OMA is trying to erase the boundary between private and public in the snotty world of high-end retail. Democratization is good in theory, but how will it work in practice?

Capt. Koolhaas Sails the New Prada Flagship by Christopher Hawthorne

The latest stateside design from Mr. Koolhaas and his Rotterdam-based firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, is a Prada flagship store that opens here Friday on Rodeo Drive. (Prada and Mr. Koolhaas prefer to call it an epicenter, joining other large stores like it in New York and Tokyo, and one in San Francisco that may never be built.) [Who thought to call a building in an earthquake zone “an epicenter”?] The building, whose budget has not been released, covers 24,000 square feet on three levels, on a lot squeezed between Gucci and Brioni, just down the palm-lined street from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

It is a piece of architecture whose most dramatic gesture is invisible: the building is completely lacking a storefront in the traditional sense. Before the store opens each morning, a gigantic garagelike aluminum door will retract into the basement, leaving no barrier � no windows, no columns, no doors � between the $400 sandals and the sidewalk.

The threshold is protected from Los Angeles’s rare spells of bad weather by an air-curtain system that responds to outside temperature and wind speed, and by the second story, which features an aluminum-covered box, 45 feet long by 12 feet high, that is cantilevered over the entrance.

“We wanted to use this absence of facade to let the public enter absolutely freely, to create a hybrid condition between public and commercial space,” Mr. Koolhaas said.

That is hardly an inconsequential gesture on a street where some retailers position conspicuously armed guards near the front door. At Prada, security sensors are hidden in the floor at the entrance, but keeping shoplifters from exiting absolutely freely will offer more than the usual challenge. [Prada stores everywhere have conspicuous, if not yet armed, guards at the entries. After all, much of the brand mystique of high fashion comes from the fact that it’s inaccessible to the wider public.]

There is also nowhere to affix the all-important logo. Prada is betting that the nonfacade facade will be highly conspicuous in its absence, suggesting the company’s supreme brand confidence. It is a calculated, even arrogant kind of nothingness, the architectural equivalent, Prada hopes, of a woman beautiful enough to risk showing up at a gala without a bit of makeup.

The firm explored a similar public-private mixture in its Manhattan flagship for Prada, which occupies a prominent corner in SoHo (formerly occupied by a branch of the Guggenheim Museum) and includes a stage for public performance.

The idea, Mr. Koolhaas said, was to shake up Prada’s reputation as one of the most exclusive brands in fashion by stressing an openness, even what he calls an “easy” and “welcoming” quality.

“A lot of high-end retail spaces are done in a minimalist style that only looks good if nobody’s in there and nobody’s touched anything,” said Ole Scheeren, a 33-year-old partner in Mr. Koolhaas’s firm who helped lead the Beverly Hills design team. “We wanted to create a space that was exclusive but also more informal, where you could sit on the stairs and try on shoes if you want but also just talk to your friends.” [Right ho. We all know how fashionistas welcome the hoi polloi to hang out in their midst.]