MILAN—What does the next collaboration between Rem Koolhaas and Miuccia Prada look like? The world is about to find out.

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture, which isled by the visionary Dutch architect, has been commissioned to overseethe transformation of an early 20th-century industrial complex at LargoIsarco, in Milan, into the Prada Foundation’s newheadquarters. An auditorium, a tower and an exhibition building will beadded to the seven existing structures and courtyard, creating a totalof 188,000 square feet of space for shows, including an innovativehybrid storageand- display area.

The project marks a fundamental change in direction for the Prada Foundation—established by Prada and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, in 1993— from a producer of high-impact shows of works by the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor and Marc Quinninto a virtual mini-ministry of culture. The new facility, scheduledfor completion in three years, will house multimedia laboratories inaddition to hosting a vast range of events, from concerts and cinemafestivals to symposia on architecture and fashion. The foundation’sgoal, says Germano Celant, the director since 1995,is “to create a force field in which all artistic languages mightconverge and radiate energies that reach beyond the walls containingthem into the urban context.”