Fondazione Prada, Milan

A visit to the coolest new art venue in town...

The new headquarters of the Fondazione Prada used to be an old distillery from the 1910s in the southern part of Milan, which has been transformed to an architectural configuration that combines pre-existing buildings with new structures. 

Fondazione Prada's main interest is ideas and the whay in which mankind has transformed those ideas into specific disciplines and cultural products such as art, cinema, music, science, etc.

From the photos you will see the cool spaces product of this post-industrial transformation that you should definitely visit.

Bar Luce is the Fondazione's social space, designed by film director Wes Anderson, this new cool spot that can be accessed from both inside and outside the Fondazione, has an amazing interior design inspired by Italian Neorealism.

A great spot for a quick coffee break before, after or during your visit to the extensive collection and exhibits of the Fondazione, they also have several food and drinks options and the atmosphere is special.

During my visit the exhibit Serial Classic Podium was taking place, unfortunately it ended in August so for those of you who didn't get to see it, here are some images and introduction*:

The exhibit was focused on Classical art (Greek and Roman) and how the adjective "classical" tends to evoke an idea of a supremely original creation, such as the classical Greek sculptures. Most of these were duplicated and produced as series and thanks to those copies we are able to admire those works nowadays since most of them were destroyed or lost. So during the Classical period, seriality, replication nad imitation were as important as invention and originality.

The Tower, or Haunted House, is the gold structure most characteristic of the new Fondazione, an original part of the distillery complex. Its interior hosts a permanent installation by Robert Gober and 2 works by Loise Bourgeois.

Works such as the Arms and Legs Wallpaper, the bronze drain Untitled and the Doorframe show us Gober's focus on sexuality, relationships, politics and religion.

Bourgeois' works, Cell and Single III, are a counterpart to Gober's works.

Another permanent installation can be found in the lower level of the Cinema building in the center of the complex, it is the Grotesque Process, by Thomas Demand, the recreation of a grotto from the island of Majorca, using 30 tons of grey cardboard, shaped by a computer and laid out to form a stratification with 900,000 sections.

In the pre-existing building called Cisterna (used to contain enormous cisterns used in the distillery), you can visit the Trittico, a dynamic display strategy of 3 carefully selected works which will be installed at a time and periodically rotating. The selection on display until January 10, 2016 includes Case II by Eva Hesse, Lost Love by Damien Hirst and 1 metro cubo di terra by Pino Pascali, all associating objects and elements of nature with the shape of the cube.

The South Gallery and the Deposit host "An Introduction", an intense exhibit project emerged from a dialogue between Miuccia Prada and Germano Celant. The sequence of spaces and the choice of the artworks suggest an itinerary beginning with the New Dada and Minimal art artistic events, passing through the gallery of artworks in different art manifestations called Quadreria, ending at the Deposit, with vehicles of diverse natures indicating a convergence between art and life.

While I'm not a fan of most of these styles or exhibit choices, the Fondazione Prada is a place I'll be coming back to very often becuase I fell in love with the architecture of the place, the Bar Luce and I'm curious to see the future exhibits that it will host.

And if you're in town visitng the Expo 2015, it can be a nice break from the usual tourist spots.

*most parts of this text are excerpts of the Fondazione Prada leaflet

Fondazione Prada
Largo Isarco 2 - 20139 MilanOpen everyday from 10 am to 9 pm
Tickets: €10 (reduced €8 for students under 26, FAI card holders, groupos of 15-25 people / free admissions for under 18, over 65, accredited journalists, visitors with disabilities)
Free guided tours Saturdays and Sundays in Italian and English (10.30, 16.30)
Get there: by metro (Line 3, stop Lodi), by tramway (line 24, stop Ripamonti/Lorenzini), by bus (line 79, stop Largo Isarco/Via Brembo)
Tel. +39 0256662612
http://www.fondazioneprada.org/?lang=en