Prada Foundation in Milan. An architectural manifesto for reuse

Reuse of the existing buildings is a particularly important theme today, because of the cultural, economic and social conditions in which the tendencies to the zero consumption of ground, the uncertainty on the future urban developments and the lack of resources, imposes to operate on the existing one. Despite this, the architectural debate is not vivacious enough, showing a contrast between the instinct to conserve and the wish and the necessity to transform. Sometimes reuse is approached as technical problem more than as project opportunity, impoverishing the object's architectural meaning and creating buildings not so usable. In the last decades, the theoretical and design research, developed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA on it, has been very meaningful in showing possible approaches able to combine in the same gesture conservation and development, past and present. The article concerns Koolhaas' thought evolution about the relationship with history. Starting from the extreme positions of his first writings, in which a sort of purification from the past was invoked, the Dutch architect's thought growth is deepened in its theories which seem to guide some his interventions on existing architectures realized in Europe in the last years, like the one of the Fondaco di Venezia and of Fondazione Prada in Milan. In particular this last project could be considered as a new manifesto of reuse in which architecture paradigms for contemporary intervention on existing buildings are redefined. The paper analyzes this case of study in its wish to confront urban relationships and in its ability to add value to the originally industrial complex thank to the application of a very deep upciclyng process.