Miu Miu and its new project designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. The 720 square meters building on Miyuki Street in the Aoyama District of Tokyo will be the cornerstone of the brand’s Japanese activities. Based in Paris, Miu Miu was established by Miuccia Prada in 1993 as a platform for design explorations beyond her legendary Prada line. Since opening its first boutique in Aoyama in 1999, Miu Miu has maintained a significant presence in Japan and now has 23 boutiques across the country including nine in Tokyo alone.

This new building continues the company’s tradition of collaboration with world-class architects and re-emphasizes Miu Miu’s dedication to the Japanese market.The project for Miu Miu is sited diagonally across the street from the celebrated Prada Tokyo Epicenter, also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, in an elegant neighborhood that has, over the past two decades, become a showplace of architectural invention. In contrast to the transparency of the all-glass Prada building, however, the understated metallic surface of the Miu Miu façade is opaque, which lends a more intimate quality. The architects say: “Contrary to expectations for a site that is home to so many luxury brands, Miyuki Street in Aoyama Tokyo is not particularly beautiful or elegant. The architecture is heterogeneous – a hodgepodge of freestanding buildings of different heights and shapes, with neither historical tradition nor common standards. Never meant to be a space of its own, the street is a purely technical and functional link between Omotesando and the Aoyama Reien cemetery farther down the road. While the street is not a place that encourages lingering and looking around, the building itself is a gesture that extends an invitation to come inside and stay a while.”