http://www.pompeiad.com Pompei A.D. LLC, C3: Commerce, Culture, and Community – creative services firm specializing in architecture, design, and experiential branding for retail, museums, spas, hotels, real estate development, and events. http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_321 LOCAL REPORTER
Sao Paulo, Brasil

What is crucial for a store to sell its products? Advertising? Planned arrangement, so that shirts lead you to ties, which lead you to belts, which lead you to shoes, which lead you to socks…?
Ron Pompei, 57, American architect who has recently worked for store chains such as Levi’s, Urban Outfitters, and Anthropologie (a sophisticated furniture and female apparel store), does not agree with either statement. He believes the secret is giving consumers some freedom.
Combining psychology, anthropology, arts, architecture, and design, Pompei has been attacking current marketing commandments for treating consumers like “homogeneous dumb people.” He believes in a more "visceral" space arrangement, so that consumers can relate and identify themselves with the place.
For example, a woman who walks into the Anthropologie store in SoHo, New York, won’t only browse through tens of dresses, furniture items, and gadgets that have been randomly arranged throughout the store. According to Pompei’s view, she will smell, touch, and create different stories for each object —whether or not they are for sale. In a nutshell, she’ll experience the store as a whole.
Besides being Pompei’s personal belief, this proposal is aligned with a phenomenon described in the book The Cultural Creatives, by sociologist Paul H. Ray. Represented by 50 million people in the United States alone, this group is composed of 40-something-year-olds whose main concerns include the environment, foreign cultures, idealism, and authenticity. "In general, ‘cultural creatives' are the third political force, because ‘right’ or ‘left’ are not enough to describe them,” he explains.
Composed of elements from ancestral cultures (Mayans, Greeks, aborigines) or objects from the last century, the spaces designed by Pompei try to give women in this age group a “sense of adventure and exploration.”
And it really works. In the last five years, Anthropologie grew 40% per year. The chain was founded in 1992 and today there are 35 stores throughout the United States, all of them designed according to the specific characteristics of its local community. “It’s like an oasis in the urban area, a place people like to go in and walk around. The more time they have to interact with the place, the more possibilities there are for them to take something home and make it part of their lives,” the architect says. He has been asked by different clients to promote similar “transformations,” including Discovery Channel, California Academy of Sciences, and Fortune magazine, for which he created the Fortune 500 environment that brings together the hottest companies in the world.
This Thursday, Pompei will attend the “Architecture and Globalization” conference in Campinas. He was invited by psychoanalyst Jorge Forbes. Before proceeding to the transcript of his interview by phone with Folha, here’s one more highlight of his career: after being transformed by his agency, Pompei A.D., the youth clothing chain Urban Outfitters grew 313% in the first quarter of 2002 when compared to the same term in the previous year. The store didn’t spend one single cent in advertising.
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Folha – What was your inspiration to work with Anthropologie stores?

Ron Pompei – I’ve always been interested in sociology, anthropology, and archeology. I’ve traveled a lot to learn about different cultures, including Sri Lanka temples, Cambodia, the Yucatán peninsula, and Greece. What I felt when I visited these places is that the experience I was going through was what really mattered. I was experiencing a specific place that had a visceral immediate history I could touch. It wasn’t abstract, something designed and planned. A story was being told while I was walking around the place. That’s when I realized I had to create very meaningful spaces, like a sculpture, but that would also be classified as architecture. Architecture embraces you. It is important to see how a space can change your mood with elements that excite your imagination.

Folha – How do you contrast this trend as opposed to currently popular space designs?

Pompei – What happens in many stores is that aisles are arranged in straight lines, like a Cartesian grid. I never do that. You don’t have to walk through a predicted path within a space. You can find your own path. The reason why people like Anthropologie is that it stimulates your imagination in a way that they feel connected to different elements in their own way. Despite the variety of textures, everything is consistent, like tapestry. People connect the dots according to their own interests. They apply their imagination to the space and become the authors of their own experience.
]]> Pompei A.D. 2008-02-27 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_321 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_322 LOCAL REPORTER
Sao Paulo, Brasil

DECORATION
For American Ron Pompei, “Casa Cor” worries to much about concept and leaves comfort behind.

Too many ideas and not enough comfort. This was basically the impression that American Ron Pompei, 57, had when Folha asked him to visit the Casa Cor 2004 exhibition.
Among the main criticisms made by this architect—who among other projects has been responsible for the interior decoration of several U.S. stores, such as Levi’s, Urban Outfitters, and Anthropologie—is the abundance of sponsors in this year’s edition and the lack of communication among them.
“There are so many different concepts being shown all at once that they start competing among themselves,” Pompei summarizes. His own proposal is to create “3D collages” that would make visitors feel “culturally integrated” into the environment.
“It’s not a problem to mix things up in an eclectic way, but you really must have some common sense,” he says. “You need to have an artistic eye to mix styles, materials, and fabrics so that everything comes together in harmony.”
The U.S. architect felt an aesthetic “shock”—one of many— as he entered the first official room of the exhibition. The event took place in a 31,215-square-foot mansion located in Morumbi neighborhood, which was build in the 1970s and, later, was turned into a small luxurious club. “There’s something schizophrenic about it. Materials are unrelated, they are heavy, extremely dramatic,” he said about the entrance hall created by architect Léo Shehtman, from São Paulo.
Pompei also felt uncomfortable in the living room designed by Marcelo Rosenbaum. “The room is too small for something like this,” he explained, pointing to the large velvet modular couches that take up most of the room. The walls, which painting job was left unfinished, almost pleased the American. “It looks good for someone who has children, but I wouldn’t hang so many things on the walls. I’d leave some space for kids to make some drawings. It would be so much fun!”
Most of his criticism is directed to the juxtaposition of textures, such as bamboo ceiling contrasting with a polished stone floor, a modern bookcase contrasting with a traditional dressing table. In spite of his criticism, the architect would give the exhibition as a whole a 7 out of 10.
“I don’t mean to sound picky, but one of the things about this kind of exhibition, which is almost a showroom, is that it tries to give a unique opportunity to several professionals. People tend to show off everything they can because they are afraid of editing and leaving something behind,” he analyses. “It also seams that merchandising is playing a big part in it. When architects try to combine commercial and artistic aspects, they feel obligated to use all the information they can, which sometimes gets in the way.” ]]> Pompei A.D. 2008-02-27 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_322 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_258 Dusseldorf, Germany
Saturday, February 23, 2008
2pm
http://www.euroshop.de/
Exhibitor Design Judging Panel
New York City
Jan. 18, 2008

American Lung Association
Palm Springs, CA.
Nov. 29 and 30, 2007

ICSC Mixed Use Conference
Las Vegas, NV
Nov. 13 and 14, 2007

Ft. Worth Real Estate Council and Commercial Real Estate Women's Organization
Ft. Worth, TX
Oct. 17, 2007
Topic: Ft. Worth as a Livable Community Now & in the Future

NeoCon
Baltimore, MD
Oct. 18, 2007

American Business Media’s Top Management Conference Chicago, IL
Nov. 5th, 2007

Best Minds in Real Estate
Washington DC
Sept. 25, 2007

Ken Robinson Salon
Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 20, 2007

Disney
Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 17, 2007 ]]> Pompei A.D. Ron Pompei 2007-07-07 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_258 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/4_109 World Retail Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Pompei A.D. participated in Future Stores, where we Ron presented an overview of the evolving cultural landscape and its implications in the world of retail. In this video that accompanied the live presentation, trend expert Kate Ancketill of GDR Creative Intelligence joins Ron to discuss 3 cultural shifts that are having significant impact on the relationships between brands and their customers. ]]> Pompei A.D. Ron Pompei,Retail,Conference,Speaking Event,Europe 2007-05-02 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/4_109 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_151
Books that Inspire and Provoke:

The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D. [buy on Amazon]

The Medium is the Message, by Marshall McLuhan [buy on Amazon]

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, by Barry Schwartz [buy on Amazon]

Ageless Marketing: Strategies for Reaching the Hearts and Minds of the New Customer Majority, by by David B. Wolfe, Robert Snyder [buy on Amazon]

Mavericks at Work, by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre [buy on Amazon]

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky, (translated by M. T. H. Sadler) [buy on Amazon]

A Whole New Mind, by Daniel H. Pink [buy on Amazon] ]]> Ron Pompei Ron Pompei,Books 2007-02-15 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_151 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_155 Pompei A.D. Ron Pompei,Bio 2006-11-23 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/10_155