Description

A visit to the Fondazione Prada involves a trip to the Porta Romana at the edge of the city of Milan. It is not the prestigious location one might expect of a private foundation so synonymous with luxury. Yet it is here between the abandoned railway lines, the poppies in the old freight yard, the residential blocks and commercial units that the Fondazione Prada has built its new home in the midst of a popular quarter that is beginning to show the first signs of gentrification. After seven years of construction on the site of the former “Società Italiana Spiriti” gin distillery from 1910, the Fondazione Prada has now moved in and signals its presence far and wide with large-format advertising posters. Lettering, too, is a recurring motif throughout the buildings of the new museum. Elegant neon letters on the façades, along with projections and recessed light bands establish a stimulating frisson with the old buildings of the distillery, which Rem Koolhaas has transformed using markings such as these, as well as interventions in the building fabric and three new buildings: the so-called podium (a transparent, clear exhibition hall), the cinema (a black box) and a nine-storey tower, which houses further works from the Prada Art Collection.

The design of the Fondazione is the momentary culmination of a long-term collaboration between OMA and Prada: Koolhaas has designed the brand’s showrooms around the world. For the Fondazione, Koolhaas posed the questions: What forms do exhibitions take in the context of urban globalisation? And which spaces are appropriate for encounters with the arts? As such, the Fondazione Prada is an exploration of the typology of the exhibition, and a contribution to the typology of urban spaces: it is an agora for the arts of our time. Koolhaas’ design has two starting points: first, the observation that the arts scene has expanded rapidly but that the palette of spatial forms in which it is experienced is limited. Aside from the White Cube, abandoned industrial buildings have become prominent exhibition venues. Secondly, the “miniature town” of the old distillery has an unusual wealth of such spatial forms, which Koolhaas has made visible, augmented and connected via the central courtyard of the site: indeed, the entire site is structured by streets, squares and the trees bordering them. Throughout the site, Koolhaas has established tension through the use of diverse forms of contrast – between new and old, horizontal and vertical, wide and narrow, white and black, open and closed.

On entering the site, the northern, gutted part of the complex extends to the right, housing a large gallery space interspersed with concrete display walls. The facade of the building opposite is rhythmically delineated by vertical black iron profiles in the form of T-beams that do not, however, reach the cantilevered concrete roof and thus display their lack of function. A low platform made of perforated steel in front emphasizes the building’s horizontality and connects the building to the courtyard as does the ramp of closely-spaced iron lamella. Following the path marked by the stone slabs from the main gate, one is led to the foyer. Its end-grain wood flooring extends out into the outside area and connects it with the forecourt. From the foyer, one has access not just to the complex with the podium and the central square, bounded by the wall of the cinema, but also to the southern wing of the building. In contrast to the northern gallery, it is a sequence of small rooms that gradually increase in size, ending in the immense 16-metre-high hall of the depot. Between the depot and the cinema lies the former cistern in a steeply sloping part of the site: three originally hermetically sealed room volumes of impressive height, to which Koolhaas added a window and a balcony protruding into the interior. Occupied by just three small works of art, this ensemble is strangely seductive. The former owner’s residence now serves as offices and opposite the entrance hall is the Bar Luce, which was furnished by the American film director Wes Anderson.

The tension between the real location and its mysterious, surreal forms of representation also determines the “haunted house” of the old distillery between the entrance and the “podium”. Now covered in gold leaf, it alludes to the waste inherent in the arts. From the small room within, one has wonderful views of the surrounding. The tower itself houses works by Louise Bourgeois and Robert Gobers.

In the “podium”, the glass cube of the central exhibition hall, three tall, narrow door arches act as portals for the entrances framed by deep, slender steel reveals that project forward past the plane of the glazing, recalling the formal language of municipal palaces of the Italian (Neo) Renaissance. Here, the glass walls have been pushed to the edge of the podium and the staircase shifted back into the interior. The exposed cantilevered steel beam is borne by a single column that is part of the stimulating arrangement of the foyer ensemble and enables a second floor to be placed over the glass podium.

For the “Serial Classics” exhibition within the “podium” building, Koolhaas also developed the scenography as a critique of the European museum. Taking the pedestal as his starting point – which in his view robs the sculpture of its dynamics by making an authoritarian gesture – he modulates the floor as a series of raised pedestals, some of them featuring groups of sculptures, some of them serving as seating for visitors. By raising the travertine floor slabs on stacks of transparent acrylic panels at different heights, he liberates the objects from their islands and establishes a free circulation of images, objects and visitors. By the time one departs the agora of the arts, pleasantly weary from the many impressions, one has no doubts that Rem Koolhaas’ new museum for the Fondazione Prada is a stroke of genius.

Originally published in Bauwelt 22.2015, pp. 14-25, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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