The Avenues Prestige: Almost Classy

By Ali Al Yousifi

Prestige Entrance from Grand Avenue

Two weeks ago, the latest district of The Avenues mall’s ambitious Phase 3 expansion opened: Prestige. It’s a two-story boulevard packed with luxury retail stores and a few expensive restaurants. And to make absolutely sure that no one would miss the fact that Prestige was ‘luxurious’ and ‘expensive’ the designers seemingly painted half its surfaces in gold. Centering the boulevard is an elegant circular fountain, surrounded with a bed of blood-red flowers. The fountain sits under a weird yet impressive "23m high central dome" that screams for attention; so much so that its lights continuously change color to entertain its bedazzled viewers. 

The central dome and fountain

The dome displaying different colors

            Some parts of Prestige are truly beautiful, especially in the morning, when the undulating skylights splash the whole space with natural light; but it still makes me uneasy. Perhaps the best way to explain my uneasiness is by comparing Prestige with a McBurger. The sight of a McBurger is mouth-watering, its smell is seductive, its taste is delicious, and it’s shockingly economical. But even if you can’t easily tell it apart from an organic home-cooked healthy burger, it’s still junk food.

Prestige is the same: it does many things right, but for the wrong reasons. It wants to impress rather than serve its visitors, it shows-off rather than celebrate its architecture. Its McArchitecture.

First floor corridor

An example of this is the lack of seating around the boulevard’s centerpiece: the dome and fountain. Twice I have been there, and twice I have seen people standing around the fountain taking pictures of it and the dome; and yet there’s no place for them sit and enjoy the view. I actually tried sitting on the border of the fountain’s flower bed, naively thinking it was a disguised bench, but was quickly notified by one of black-suited red-tied guards that it was not for sitting on; unfortunately it was not designed for human interaction, but only to be admired from a distance.

Another example is to simply quote how The Avenues website describes Prestige’s design: “A combination of rich materials reinforces exclusivity with public spaces indulging the senses and providing a lavish platform for some of the world’s most exclusive brands”. But there isn’t and shouldn’t be anything ‘exclusive’ about a mall; it’s supposed to be extremely inclusive. Rather than reinforcing class difference, the design of Prestige could’ve encouraged mass hospitality and equality, despite being home for expensive retail stores.

Armani Cafe' seating

Although Prestige does fulfill its main objective of evoking ideas of luxury and extravagance, it’s trying too hard to achieve that goal, to the point that it risks being vulgar. There’s a difference between actual quality and simple appearance, and Prestige pays too much attention to the latter. This is not to say that Prestige has no quality, not at all, but that with the same exaggerated effort spent on making the place feel ‘luxurious’, Prestige’s designers and developers could’ve invested their time in creating a dearly needed enjoyable, warm, and inclusive public space.

View from first floor