Prada Marfa, Texas, by architect Simon Mitchell

Every year I take a motorbike holiday, just booking a hotel the night I arrive and then heading off into the unknown. Last year I flew into LA for a 3,500-mile trip around California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. On the way from Fort Davis to El Paso, where there is nothing as far as the eye can see but desert and long straight roads, I stumbled across what looked like a luxury boutique in the middle of nowhere. The world’s smallest Prada flagship? It turned out to be Prada Marfa – not a shop, but a sculpture by contemporary artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset on Highway 90, about 40 miles from the arty town of Marfa, in west Texas.

Opened in 2005, it’s only 7.6 metres wide: you can’t go in but you can see shoes and handbags inside. It was going to be destroyed as an “illegal roadside advertisement”, but after long negotiations with the Texas Department of Transportation it was saved and is now classified as a museum. It’s definitely a great little place – and funny that a luxury retail architect like me should stumble upon it!
• Simon Mitchell is co-founder of Sybarite Architects