Fondazione Prada – Largo Isarco, 2

Created in 1993 by the Milanese designer and entrepreneur Miuccia Prada, the Fondazione Prada was established to examine modern times and to convey the importance of cultural commitment pursued through the creation of contemporary art exhibitions by both Italian and International artists. Over the years the foundation has been open to the ways in which mankind has transformed ideas into specific disciplines and cultural products: from art to architecture, philosophy, science, design and cinema. Among the artists hosted between 1993 and 2010 are Eliseo Mattiacci, Nino Franchina, Anish Kapoor, Louise Bourgeois, Mariko Mori, Steve McQueen, Nathalie Djurberg and John Baldessari.

On May 9th, 2015 the fondazione inaugurated its new headquarters in Largo Isarco, in the south of the city. Its present look has been refashioned from the renovation of an early twentieth-century distillery and enhanced by three new buildings (Podium, Cinema and Torre); these host several projects simultaneously comprising exhibitions, film festivals and a designated space for children with didactic activities. The sheer variety of spatial configurations within the venue stimulates the flexibility and interaction of the cultural proposals, in which aspects of shared planning and dialogue spring from an approach to art as an instrument of knowledge and inner enrichment The foyer of the Cinema hosts a ceramic work by Lucio Fontana, Battaglia (1948): originally made for the Cinema Arlecchino in Milan it evokes the artistic and cultural rebirth of the years of post-war modernization in Italy.

From the furbishing to the ceiling the Bar Luce, located in the entrance of the premises, evokes the atmosphere of the historic Milanese bars of the fifties and sixties, filtered through the eyes of contemporary Italian cinema. Its vaulted ceiling reproduces the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in miniature. According to the designer of this one-of-a-kind bar, the American director Wes Anderson, "it would be a great set, but also a beautiful place in which to write a movie".