2024 - Juni - Mailand - Prada Foundation

When we visited, it was cloudy all day. It even rained a little now and then. And yet there was this glow. This special something, this shine, comes from a golden building on the grounds of the Fondazione Prada museum.

With money from the foundation of fashion designer Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli, an exhibition area with several buildings was created on the site of a former distillery. There is plenty of space here for modern art.

It opened in 2015, and the 9-story tower was added later. While most of the buildings were restored, the tower was built from scratch. The ride in the large glass elevator is an experience in itself. Music plays and when you look outside, the golden house keeps appearing.

Now, I am by no means an expert in modern art, but things with a high visual appeal and interesting sightlines in outdoor areas have always fascinated me.

The whole thing was designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas.

In addition to the renovation, special effects were also created. For example, you can find large mirrors on some of the walls of the houses. When we arrived, one of them was being used by a photography course from Asia. They even had their own (male) model with them.

But of course the focus was on the art. We liked Carsten Höller's installation "Upside Down Mushroom Room" the best. First you are led through a pitch-black corridor and then, like in Alice's Wonderland, you end up in a room with oversized, upside-down toadstools.

Everyone has different favorites, of course, and I hope you enjoy exploring. In addition to visiting the exhibition, we can also recommend the dining areas. And, this is also worth mentioning, it is not overcrowded here. You can relax and absorb your impressions.

The house made of gold was named "The Haunted House". In fact, there is nothing haunted here, you just have to work a little hard to find the installations there, because the building is quite winding.

And what about the shine? In the end, this effect could only be created with real gold leaf, which was painstakingly applied by hand using an old technique.