Milan, the city of art and design: the back story

About Milan, the city of art and design: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Milan Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Milan’s old masters hang in two great collections: the Pinacoteca di Brera, grown since December 2024 into the Grande Brera with Palazzo Citterio, and the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, home of Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus. Around them are the house museums of the Quadrilatero, the Poldi Pezzoli and the Bagatti Valsecchi, and, further out, the city of design and contemporary art: the Triennale, the Fondazione Prada and Pirelli HangarBicocca.

The old masters

The Pinacoteca di Brera, at Via Brera 28, holds Mantegna, Raphael, Piero della Francesca and Caravaggio; Palazzo Citterio, opened in December 2024, completes the Grande Brera. The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana keeps Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus and Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit.

The house museums

The Museo Poldi Pezzoli and the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi show collectors’ houses as they lived in them; Villa Necchi Campiglio, run by the FAI, is a 1930s villa with its own garden and swimming pool.

Book Brera and the Fondazione Prada online; go to the HangarBicocca on a weekday.

Design

The Triennale Milano, in the Palazzo dell’Arte at the edge of the Parco Sempione, has its own design museum; the ADI Design Museum shows the Compasso d’Oro collection. Each April the Salone del Mobile fills the city.

Contemporary art

The Fondazione Prada, designed by OMA in a former 1910s distillery at Largo Isarco, has a sixty-metre white tower; Pirelli HangarBicocca, in a former industrial plant, shows Anselm Kiefer’s The Seven Heavenly Palaces.

Our advice: plan one old-master morning and one contemporary afternoon.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Milan, the city of art and design: the back story before you go.