![\"Image](\"http:\/\/static.atlasobscura.com\/images\/place\/prada-marfa.8311.main.jpg\" "\\"Prada")
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A perfect recreation of a Prada Store in the middle of the West Texas desert<\/b><\/p>\n
The middle of the West Texas desert isn\u2019t the first place you\u2019d expect to find a fully stocked Prada store, but stop a few miles outside of the tiny town of Valentine, Texas and you\u2019ll find just that.
\nThe brainchild of Berlin-based artistic team Elmgreen and Dragset, Prada Marfa was meant to be a \u201cpop architectural land art project.\u201d Built of a biodegradable adobe-like substance, the building is meant to slowly melt back into the Earth, serving as a surrealist commentary on Western materialism. Interesting, then, that Miuccia Prada herself was consulted on the project, handpicking the merchandise for the inside of the store and allowing Elmgreen and Dragset to use the Prada logo. Costing a sum total of $80,000 – or put another way, costing about 40 Prada handbags – Prada Marfa\u2019s grand opening occurred on October 1st, 2005, and the perplexed associated press spread the news all across the country.
\nWith all the press coverage, it was only a few days before vandals converged on the site, breaking the windows, looting the store, and grafitiing the walls. Elmgreen and Dragset came in and repaired the building, but this time around they\u2019ve taken precautions: all of the store\u2019s Prada wares are heavily alarmed, and stronger windows have been installed to protect the interior from forced entry. While the vandalism might be the most exciting thing that\u2019s ever happened to Prada Marfa, the site still gets thousands of visitors a year, despite Route 90\u2019s low traffic flow.
\nMost people buy the artists\u2019 story, but a few vocal dissenters have flooded the internet with conspiracy theories. Some even argue that Prada Marfa is a trap set by aliens meant to attract potential abductees. Visitors beware.<\/p>\n
Read more about Prada Marfa on Atlas Obscura…<\/a><\/p>\n Category: Outsider Architecture<\/a> Prada Marfa A perfect recreation of a Prada Store in the middle of the West Texas desert The middle of the West Texas desert isn\u2019t the first place you\u2019d expect to find a fully stocked Prada store, but stop a few miles outside of the tiny town of Valentine, Texas and you\u2019ll find just that. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Location: <\/a>
Edited by: gabeschwartz<\/a>, Dylan<\/a>
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