04 Jul Fashion & Culture at Fondazione Prada
Since last year, just outside the historic center of Milan, you can see a golden palace that is almost impossible not to notice. We are talking about one of the buildings realized in the new headquarters of Fondazione Prada.
Fondazione Prada, founded by the Italian namesake fashion house known internationally, is an institution founded in 1993 as a place of analysis of the present through the conception of contemporary art exhibitions and sculpture, cinema and philosophy projects.
It is headed by Patrizio Bertelli, CEO of Prada, and his wife Miuccia Prada, famous designer and granddaughter of Mario Prada, the founder of the brand.
The headquarter is located in Largo Isarco in the south of Milan near Via Ripamonti and it was designed by the OMA architecture studio, led by Rem Koolhaas. The whole structure takes up 19,000 square meters, of which 11,000 are used for exhibitions.
The complex is characterized by a mix of 7 existing buildings and 3 new constructions (Podium, Cinema and Tower).
The new location is the result of the transformation of a 1910 distillery and the construction of new buildings. The complex creates a space that houses the Prada contemporary art collection, a space for temporary exhibitions, an educational area for children developed with the students of the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles .
The feature of this place is to have very different locations cohabiting together: old and new, wide and narrow, open and closed, horizontal and vertical… The colors are the gray of old industrial plaster, the black, white, and then the gold of the building called the Haunted House.
The real attraction is definitely the so called Café “Luce”: designed by the director Wes Anderson, this café recreates the atmosphere of a typical café in the old city of Milan. Furnishings, seats, formica furniture, the floor, the wood veneered panels that cover the walls and the color range remind of the popular culture and the Italian aesthetics of the Fifties and Sixties. A true example of history and art.
