Bar: Though not an artwork per se, one of the Fondazione's most delicious spaces is the Bar Luce, designed by film director Wes Anderson, known for the vivid and meticulously constructed life-worlds of his movies. Bar Luce recreates, via Anderson's dreamy lens, a retro-tinged moment of classic Italian cafe culture. It is hard not be charmed by the lickably pretty strawberry-ice cream-coloured terrazzo, the trompe l'oeil wallpaper and scallop-arched ceiling. Pop-art pastel shades of upholstery take the elegant lines of mid-century-style furniture, reminiscent of classic Milanese street cafes, to the edge of cartoony surrealism.

The opalescent, reflective surface of the polycarbonate double-wall; the 'garage door' rises like a beacon. Photo Credit: John Paul Pacelli

The candy-coloured Formica table-tops appeared in Castello Cavalcanti, a whimsical short film that Anderson made for Miuccia in 2013 (in which Jason Schwartzmann flaunts a canary-yellow leather onesie). A 200-song jukebox replete with Italian hits from the Fifties and Sixties, and vintage paraphernalia loaded with winking references to Anderson's other movies (there's a Steve Zissou pinball machine) are details pitched at a perfect smile-inducing level of kitsch. Not easy.

But by Anderson's own admission the Bar Luce is not intended as a cinematic space: 'I tried to make it a bar I would want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in... It would make a pretty good movie set, but it would be an even better place to write a movie.' So rather than sporting the manicured symmetry so often framed in his films, this place feels quite natural. Waiters move expertly but comfortably in white cotton half-shirts. The outdoor balcony, where you might take an espresso or a negroni, is rather narrow; to pass a table, you're obliged to turn sideways and edge past seated customers - but so much like the tables in a typical street cafe. There is intimacy and bustle; as the ledge faces the main 'street' entering the Fondazione campus, this is all to the good: a perfect spot for people-watching.

Institution/City: In keeping with the Fondazione's deliberately kinetic, multifaceted intentions, it has not appointed a curator for the space (beyond the intuitive stronghold exerted by Miuccia herself ). Instead, the rather ominously titled Thought Council will host a rotating cast of the art world's most challenging critical thinkers to conceive of the ways the new campus can best allow 'the pluralities of artistic idioms to intersect'.

Serial Classic, the first exhibition to inhabit the new foam-and-glass gallery, is a truly impressive start. Curated by art historian Salvatore Settis and archaeological researcher Anna Anguissola, it looks at the sculpture of antiquity, as produced in Ancient Greece and Rome, and copied, first by the Romans, thereby spreading across the Middle East, and then endlessly through time. Displaying near-identical copies of antique statues, including as its highlight the famous Waiting Penelope (c.450 BC), the show questions strongly held assumptions about artistic production and our attachment to the belief in the 'original'.

The Fondazione Prada's shiny new campus in Milan is the latest example of couture-philanthropy; as arts budgets continue to shrink under slash-and-burn policies across Europe, fashion houses are taking centre stage in a previously unprecedented manner. But unlike the self-aggrandising Armani SILO across town, dressed by Tadao Ando in 50 shades of beige, the Fondazione Prada's new campus has nothing to do with Prada's sartorial activities. Indeed, don't mention the frocks: the Fondazione expresses a definite distancing from the commercial 'product', assuming a dedication, even a responsibility, towards genuine intellectual and cultural engagement.

A close up of the aluminum foam - developed with the help of underwater explosions - used to clad the new gallery volumes

In parallel, one might observe the eye-wateringly expensive, spiky extravagance of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, which opened last year to mixed reactions. Built on public land, Frank Gehry's confection is undoubtedly a spectacular addition to the architectural bijoux of Paris; the safety net of its private agenda and financial backing gave its creator enough confidence to flip the bird at the rest of the world's architects. Also in Paris, the Fondation Cartier, housed in Jean Nouvel's stunning, dematerialised glass box, is soon to be joined by the Fondation Galeries Lafayette (backed by the fashion department store on the Champs Elysées), which will offer creative working space to artists and designers in another old building remodelled by OMA.

In this respect the Fondazione Prada is conscious of its potential. Though she hates to be considered either a collector or a patron, Miuccia Prada has stated: 'My intuition was that it would be good to have a place where people could live with ideas' - acknowledging the potential of culture to 'answer political and even existential questions'. Visitors will be able to enjoy the whole complex, from the pastel-kitsch bar to mirrored cinema - not forgetting the forthcoming nine-storey 'Torre' of galleries and public spaces - at €10 for the whole day. At the (grave) risk of mollifying the retraction of state funds, it appears that as in history, the private patronage of the luxury world may be the most generous public offer around.

Conclusion: If the strange agglomeration of buildings is indicative of a recurrent strength in what might be called the tradition of OMA- especially with Koolhaas at the tiller - it also reflects Prada's own contrarian predilections. The starting exhibition perhaps articulates some of the tensions found in both OMA and the Milanese fashion house; taking the 'classical' and presenting it in a way that requires a total rethinking of what it means to be authentic and enduring.

The site houses a collection of artefacts and is itself a collection of multiple artefacts. That's not to say that the complex doesn't hold together; the very tension between raw and refined, between luxury and accessibility, between preservation and rupture, is what provides a galvanising friction to the whole site. Koolhaas' official written statement for the foundation is titled 'Repertoire' - meaning the extensive roles a single person or object is prepared to perform.

The new campus of Fondazione Prada shows OMA and Prada in reciprocal roles of artist and muse, where the inspiration of each raises a challenge to the creativity of the other. This is a place which will bear return, and which will provoke exploration and reconfiguration each time.