High-tech emporiums; Prada and Toys R Us have much in common.

In 1948, Frank Lloyd Wright redesigned a home-furnishings shop on Maiden Lane in San Francisco for Lillian and Vere Morris. His plan called for a multistory interior space but no traditional display windows, which worried the Morrises, and Wright assured them that he was thinking of their commercial needs. "We are not going to dump your beautiful merchandise on the street," he wrote, "but create an arch-tunnel of glass, into which the passers-by may look and be enticed. As they penetrate further into the entrance, seeing the shop inside . . . they will suddenly push open the door, and you've got them. . . . Like a mousetrap!" Rem Koolhaas has given Prada more or less the ...