The ‘love’ glyph that represented Prince’s name from 1993 to 2000 is emblazoned everywhere, from the floor of Paisley Park’s entrance hall to its speakers, ceilings and neon lights. Postmodern touches, including rounded balconies and polyhedral glass skylights, feature inside. A pyramid above Prince’s office lit up purple when he was in the building.

Above: Paisley Park entrance lobby and below: one of the purple-tinted relaxation rooms

‘The pyramid was a request from Prince,’ Thoeny says. ‘The white metal panels were my concept — it makes it easy to illuminate any purple colour.’

Carpets, walls and upholstery are also fitted in shades of violet. Even lighting in some of the rooms has a lavender hue. Elsewhere, walls are painted with fluffy white clouds and the boardroom ceiling is a silken purple galaxy. Portraits of Prince himself are also plentiful, including a mural of his eyes.

Notoriously private, Prince took refuge in Paisley Park, which also became the site of his archive. In 1990, TIME reported that the musician kept his awards — including the four gold and eight platinum albums he’d amassed at the time — locked in a basement room, next to tapes of an estimated 100 unreleased songs, plus two complete albums. One wonders just how much that archive has grown, more than a quarter of a century later.

Paisley Park was ‘much more than a studio’, as Prince himself told GQ reporter Chris Heath. In 1996, it closed commercially but Prince and some of his friends continued recording and performing until last week.

And the Purple One also liked to throw open its doors to locals on occasion. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, fans were invited to tour the facility as part of Prince: a celebration and he threw regular parties and concerts in the building’s hangar-like live event spaces, which took on a mythology of their own.

Though news of Prince Roger Nelson’s passing came as a shock on Thursday afternoon, it seems poignant he died in the sanctuary that allowed him to create for three decades.

The building could play a central role in years to come t00. ‘We will turn Paisley Park into a museum in Prince’s memory,’ Maurice Phillips, Prince’s brother-in-law, told The Sun. ‘It would be for the fans. He was all about the fans — this would remember his music, which is his legacy.’

Words Betty Wood

Like this story? Recommend it to a friend and follow us on Medium. You can also read more at The Spaces.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter