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This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s Guide to Milan
Milan is a synonym of design. April April, the city hosts the design week in Milan – a festival that includes the Mobile Salone Furniture Fair and other events where companies, designers, architects, buyers and creators from more than 150 countries show their vision for the future. The fair is held in the Fiera Milani exhibition complex in RHO, under the “sails” designed by architect Massimiliano Fuksas, and radiates through the city through countless events. But if you are unable to visit it, Milan is a treasure for year -round design lovers, with world -class museums, gallery, pioneer architecture and much more.
books
For me, Italian artist and stylist Bruno Munari was a beacon – a great friend of my family who helped teach me about the design. He was passionate about engaging children with art, and I was lucky enough to participate in his workshops when I was young. So my first recommendation is to start with his book, In the Milan fog At the Bocca Bookstore, it can be found in Italy’s oldest bookstore, which has been in operation since 1775 in the heart of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele (in itself an architectural icon). It reserves more than 5,000 art titles and dozens of artists’ publications, and one can spend hours by Perus by its shelves.
Book lovers will also enjoy the meditative silence of the 18th-century Bibliots Bibriliza, where I spent to spend my afternoon studying the stage design at the Accademia di Brera, which is in the same building. The library is one of the largest in Italy, and is now part of Grande Brera, a network of cultural institutions in the style of BERRA, which also includes Pinacoteca di Brara (Gallery of Brera Arts) and Palazzo Citterio, a new 20th-century art gallery that opened last year (and took more than 50 years). Here you will find Jesi and Vitali collections as well as masterpieces by Umberto Bocvia (including his celebrities “City that goes up”), Giorgio Morandi, Picasso and Modigliani.
Museum
In Brera, take a break in the botanical garden before making your way west to Parco Sempione, where you will spend 15th-century Castello Sforzesco on the road to Triaennale Milan, the Museum of Art and Design. An indispensable space is cuore, a new gallery and a research center dedicated to the historical triennal archives.
Italy’s golden era of industrial design and furniture traveled the 1940s to the 1980s and was formed by visionaries such as Gio Ponti, Vico Magistretti, Joe Colombo and Ettore Sottsass. The Achille Castiglioni Foundation is a spectacular place for those who want to explore the roots of the Milanese design, which has long placed the course for living culture beyond the borders of the house space. Adi Design Museum, House of Historical Collection Depending on Compasso d’Oro – the prestigious industrial design price originating in Italy in 1954 – also serves as an introduction to explore a city that thrives on radical design. The museum embodies the philosophy of Gio Ponti that the design principles must be implemented universally – from the smallest objects to the large scale of Milan. Over time, countless architectural episodes have turned the city into an “object” design in itself.
architecture
Among the highlights is the Velalasca Tower, built in the 1950s by the BBPR. One of Milano Skyline’s most popular monuments and a major example of modern wave architecture, 106 meters tower, with its prominent shape as mushrooms, has recently returned and renovated by Hines and Asti Architetti. In the northwest of the tower, QT8 (Quartie Triaeninal 8) by architect Piero Botoni, one of the great Pioneers of Milan’s post-war reconstruction, is another bold design act. The experimental housing project was conceived during the 1947 Triaeninal Di Milan exhibition, and also included the creation of Monte Stella – an artificial hill made of construction waste from structures destroyed during World War II.
Art gallery
Milan is also the home of a beautifully designed art space. Not to be lost is the Matta Gallery, founded by three thirty of who taught the cords in Massimo de Carlo and Pace Gallery, and who specializes in contemporary art.
Location in Milan and Massimo De Carlo in Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, designed in the 1930s by Piero Portaluppi is another gallery worth visiting, even to see the space. One of the most popular portaluppi projects, a subtle example of Milanese rationalist architecture containing beautiful details and materials across, such as colorful marbles and rich forests.
Other favorites include the strict and wonderful space of the white Cuba of Lia Rumma, designed by Locatelli Partners, and Pirelli Hangarbicocca-a contemporary art space in what was once a Pirelli tire plant.
MobileFiera Milan, April 8–13; Direction
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