MILAN — In a former Nestlé granary in the Zona Tortona of Milan, Giorgio Armani has opened Armani/Silos, his new exhibition space stocked with four floors of his clothes, about 600 pieces in all.

The opening of Armani/Silos was timed to his 40th anniversary in business. The opening exhibition includes only pieces from his namesake Giorgio Armani collection.

The building, constructed in 1950 and acquired by the Armani company in 2005, was left mainly intact, in agreement with the municipality of Milan. Only the entrance hall is new, a glass-walled chamber that opens onto the Via Bergognone, the street that includes Mr. Armani’s showroom, a Tadao Ando-designed theater and some of his offices.

According to a Silos representative, Mr. Armani conceived and supervised the building’s renovation. He curated the collection from his archives, selected the background music that plays throughout and designed the furniture for the ground-floor cafe.

Silos is divided into floors roughly organized by theme. Daywear and famous suits, from Armani ad campaigns and films, occupy much of the ground level.

The second floor, “Exoticisms,” is dedicated to Mr. Armani’s interest in cross-cultural references, like the fall 1981 collection inspired by Japan and Akira Kurosawa’s “Kagemusha.” (Grace Jones was a particular fan of this collection, the Silos rep said.)

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The third floor is given over to “Color-Schemes,” such as a beaded floral trouser suit from the fall 1993 collection, inspired by Matisse.

And shimmering evening dresses classed in the category “Light” share the fourth floor with a research space, including touch-sensitive digital tables for casual scanning and Macintosh workstations for those who want to go deep, paging through capsule histories, collection sketches, show videos and ad campaigns.

Mr. Armani has said he decided to call the place Armani/Silos in tribute to its former life, and because just as food is essential to life, so is fashion.

“I thought that bringing clothes, accessories, bags and technical drawings together in a single space, as an archiving project with a particular, personal perspective, would be a concrete way to turn the past into a foundation for the future,” he said via a spokeswoman.