Though most analyses of Koolhaas have praised the synergy between his prose and his architecture, he may be doing himself no favors with his hyperintellectual persona. Over the years, the jargon Koolhaas trots out to justify his forms has grown more self-aggrandizing and, frankly, less persuasive. He described the Prada store, for instance, as a reinvention of the retail experience and even as a new sort of public space. But in reality it's little more than a very cool-looking place to browse. Its splashiest features—the wood-paneled wave that sweeps dramatically to the ground floor, the massive circular elevator—make the building less effective on a retail level, not more.