Milan's Fondazione Prada: art with serious style
Milan's recently unveiled Fondazione Prada oozes style and substance
If the 2000s are to be remembered for the rise of the art fair, this decade should be remembered as the time of the private art foundation.
Wealthy individuals and businesses supporting the arts may have a long history, but the new breed of patrons is more interested in investing their cash and considerable connections on creating a new paradigm for experiencing art that combines art gallery, museum and social space in a world away from the typical modernist white cube environment.
We want to find new ways for sharing ideas and think about how a contemporary art institution can engage with many other elements and stimulate thinking in different ways
Step forward the inimitable Miuccia Prada, whose newly unveiled Fondazione Prada, designed by Dutch "starchitect" Rem Koolhaas, extends the appreciation of art to include innovation, design and culture, literature and cinema.
The foundation itself has been influential, presenting exhibitions, commissioning and collecting artworks for more than two decades. Its new permanent home, however, creates a fresh impetus to its work while filling a creative void in Milan, a city that is famous for its avant-garde fashion and furniture design, but still lacks a public museum dedicated to contemporary art.
"In our country for many years, people concentrated only on the preservation of the artistic heritage and it seemed there was no space for contemporary art," says Dario Franceschini, Italy's minister for culture and tourism.
"This is an important project for both Milan and the whole country. It's a gift to Italy."