Located in a former gin distillery dating from 1910 in the Largo Isarco industrial complex on the southern edge of Milan.
The Milan office of the Prada Foundation, designed by the OMA studio, is a campus where everything talks about art with a multidisciplinary vocation through an articulated wide-ranging exhibition and cultural program: not only art but also architecture, philosophy, science and cinema.
“The new home of Fondazione Prada is a coexistence of new and regenerated buildings including warehouses, laboratories and brewing silos, as well as new buildings surrounding a large courtyard”
The complex is spread over a total area of 19,000 m2, of which 11,000 m2 will be used for exhibition activities. As Rem Koolhaas argues: "The Prada Foundation project is not a conservation work nor is it the conception of a new architecture. These two dimensions coexist, while remaining distinct, and confront each other in a process of continuous interaction, as if they were fragments destined never to form a single and defined image, in which one element prevails over the others "
The story
The art center, which now has the new square named after Adriano Olivetti right next to it, is the latest episode of the institution launched in 1993. It is a true campus for "making art" in the seven original, pre-existing restored buildings - warehouses, laboratories and silos - and in the three new structures - Podium, for the performing arts, Cinema and Tower for the permanent collection, which operates in parallel with the offices of Ca 'Corner della Regina overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice, since 2011, and the Observatory in Milan in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, since 2016.