Panorami al futuro: Fondazione Prada e la musealizzazione del brand

Abstract

This contribution aims to explore some trends in the field of brands, with the Fondazione Prada spaces in Milan as a case study. This is an interesting case, and not the only one, in which a major brand broadens its range of action, proposing itself no longer and not only as a producer of haute couture objects, but as a modern patron putting art at the disposal of a large public. The location of the exhibition spaces is that of a former distillery dating back to the early 1900s: the resemantisation and consequent change in the thematic role of the space raises a series of questions as to what and how the past is maintained and whether and in what way the previous functions continue to operate in the present. Not only that, but the Fondazione Prada is a hybrid place, in which more than one place interacts and more than one voice speaks (inside, for instance, are the Torre restaurant and the Bar Luce, designed by Wes Anderson). Finally, the relationship with the city is interesting, in a double sense: on the one hand, the urban space is staged thanks to transparent surfaces that offer it as a panorama to the eyes of the observer; on the other, it is traversed by transformations that originate from the Foundation. Indeed, the exhibition site extends its sphere of action beyond the confines of the building, redefining the neighbourhood and triggering further urban trends.