Milan is always the city of fashion, but unlike the fame it had in the 90s, Milan today is the city par excellence of design in Italy. In recent decades his fame as design capital has become stronger and stronger.
Thanks to the new architectural projects, the new facilities, the new artists, the space for the imagination that successive municipal administrations have left and the private company that has invested in design and innovation.
For those interested in discovering this ultra-modern side of the Lombard capital, there are some places in the city that fully summarize this urban concept and that are absolutely essential to visit.
When it was inaugurated, the Vertical Forest, the greenest building in the metropolis (famous for its gray color due to cement and winter fog) won the title of most beautiful skyscraper in the world. But aesthetics are not everything. The two towers are home to more than 800 trees and 19 species of plants that help absorb dust and smog and produce oxygen. It is still part of a wider urban recovery project that is still underway. It is one of the new symbols of Milan and should take first place among modern attractions to visit.
In the Garibaldi-Isola area, completely remodeled in recent years, where the skyscraper is located, there are, among others, some of the most representative buildings and places of the "new" Milan: the Unicredit Tower (with its 231 meters, the tallest skyscraper in Italy); the Diamante Tower, the tallest building with a metal load-bearing structure built in Italy; the Palazzo della Regione Lombardia and the BAM or Library park of trees in Milan.
However, fashion and design always go hand in hand. So among the places to visit in Milan is Fondazione Prada, a skyscraper of particular architecture made of exposed white concrete, which houses a foundation that promotes art, design, architecture and all figurative arts. Each of the tower's floors offers a different perception of the internal environments. On the panoramic terrace on the top floor you can enjoy a splendid view of the city.
In the beginning there was meAgo, edge and node. Design in Milan started from here. The sculpture was inaugurated in 2000 to highlight the connection that this city has with fashion. The giant needle with the multicolored thread sticks into a stitch piazzale Cadorna and reappears at another point in the square with the final knot. It was one of the first installations that began the many others that followed.
Not far from here is one of the most innovative neighborhoods in Milan from an architectural point of view: Life in the city, which once housed the old fair. Here star architects such as the late Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Arata Isozaki fought on equal terms, creating some of the most emblematic buildings of today: the Hadid Tower (the “Storto”), the Libeskind Tower (the “Curve”) and the Isozaki Tower (the “Straight”).
The project for this somewhat peripheral but absolutely fashionable area not only includes buildings, but also a large pedestrian zone, the largest in the city and one of the largest in Europe.
As a tribute to design, each year one of the most important events in the world is held in Milan, attracting many more visitors than fashion weeks. In 2020, due to Covid, the Design Week was postponed from April to the end of September. From October 29 to 10, 350 events on the Milan Design City 2020 calendar, in addition to the numerous private initiatives spread throughout the city, with presentations, installations, meetings and parties, respecting of course the anti-Covid regulations.
Among the unmissable events, free visits to the Museum of Italian Design at the Triennale, the Fuorisalone in the streets of Brera, the visit of the Molino Sofia Design District, the new area dedicated to design between via Santa Sofia and via Molino delle Armi (in the center) and a Stella Artois beer aperitif on the special barge located on the Naviglio Grande, created with the aim of promoting physical distancing ( but not -social) during The typically Milanese happy hour ritual, thanks to a piece of street art created on the floor of the ship.
