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Fondazione Prada, the fashion label’s new arts-and-culture complex in Milan, is now open in a former distillery. Inside Rem Koolhaas’ relatively restrained exterior lies something a little more twee than one might expect to see from Miu Miu: a bar designed by Wes Anderson.
Wired
calls it a “film set rendered in real life, where you can sit at a vintage Formica table, sip a Campari on the rocks, and pretend you’re in 1950s Italy.” Whether you can get anybody’s phone number by shouting down from a helicopter that’s transporting a statue of Christ as in
La Dolce Vita remains unanswered.
Bar Luce reflects Anderson’s fussy love of all things mid-century, evoking a sort of Italian neo-realist Peach Pit as well as the Milanese cafes of yore. The palette is cool and spring-like, with the pinball machines (one of them Steve Zissou-themed) matching the tabletops, and napkin dispensers that contain branded napkins. It's meant to be an honest-to-God neighborhood hangout, albeit one where you might see Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman getting into a fake fistfight, feeding sheet music to a Komodo dragon, or asking for directions to the 375th Street Y.
It’s open from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m., and in all likelihood the jukebox does not have “Wrecking Ball” on it. We haven’t been able to see the menu, which is almost certainly printed in Futura, but hopefully, there’s a cocktail called Cinecittà, if only because it’s just fun to say.
